TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lee, Jinhee
AU  - Kwan, Yunna
AU  - Lee, Jun Young
AU  - Shin, Jae Il
AU  - Lee, Keum Hwa
AU  - Hong, Sung Hwi
AU  - Han, Young Joo
AU  - Kronbichler, Andreas
AU  - Smith, Lee
AU  - Koyanagi, Ai
AU  - Jacob, Louis
AU  - Choi, SungWon
AU  - Ghayda, Ramy Abou
AU  - Park, Myung-Bae
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/6/18
TI  - Public Interest in Immunity and the Justification for Intervention in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis of Google Trends Data
JO  - J Med Internet Res
SP  - e26368
VL  - 23
IS  - 6
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - social big data
KW  - infodemiology
KW  - infoveillance
KW  - social listening
KW  - immune
KW  - vitamin
KW  - big data
KW  - public interest
KW  - intervention
KW  - immune system
KW  - immunity
KW  - trends
KW  - Google Trends
KW  - internet
KW  - digital health
KW  - web-based health information
KW  - correlation
KW  - social media
KW  - infectious disease
AB  - Background: The use of social big data is an important emerging concern in public health. Internet search volumes are useful data that can sensitively detect trends of the public's attention during a pandemic outbreak situation. Objective: Our study aimed to analyze the public’s interest in COVID-19 proliferation, identify the correlation between the proliferation of COVID-19 and interest in immunity and products that have been reported to confer an enhancement of immunity, and suggest measures for interventions that should be implemented from a health and medical point of view. Methods: To assess the level of public interest in infectious diseases during the initial days of the COVID-19 outbreak, we extracted Google search data from January 20, 2020, onward and compared them to data from March 15, 2020, which was approximately 2 months after the COVID-19 outbreak began. In order to determine whether the public became interested in the immune system, we selected coronavirus, immune, and vitamin as our final search terms. Results: The increase in the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases that occurred after January 20, 2020, had a strong positive correlation with the search volumes for the terms coronavirus (R=0.786; P<.001), immune (R=0.745; P<.001), and vitamin (R=0.778; P<.001), and the correlations between variables were all mutually statistically significant. Moreover, these correlations were confirmed on a country basis when we restricted our analyses to the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Korea. Our findings revealed that increases in search volumes for the terms coronavirus and immune preceded the actual occurrences of confirmed cases. Conclusions: Our study shows that during the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis, the public’s desire and actions of strengthening their own immune systems were enhanced. Further, in the early stage of a pandemic, social media platforms have a high potential for informing the public about potentially helpful measures to prevent the spread of an infectious disease and provide relevant information about immunity, thereby increasing the public’s knowledge. 
SN  - 1438-8871
UR  - https://www.jmir.org/2021/6/e26368
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/26368
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34038375
DO  - 10.2196/26368
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/26368
ER  -