Google Trends: Opportunities and limitations in health and health policy research

•Google Trends™ is used to study patterns of search engine queries worldwide.•Search data has diverse applications, from tracking influenza outbreaks to e-cigarette interest.•Dialogue with researchers still must address how queries are organised and coded. Web search engines have become pervasive in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health policy (Amsterdam) Vol. 123; no. 3; pp. 338 - 341
Main Authors: Arora, Vishal S., McKee, Martin, Stuckler, David
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Ireland Elsevier B.V 01.03.2019
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects:
Customer services
Health behaviours
Health care policy
Health policy
Information
Internet
Policy analysis
Search engines
Social media
Surveillance
Trends
Health behaviours
Health policy
Internet
Social media
ISSN:0168-8510, 1872-6054, 1872-6054
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:•Google Trends™ is used to study patterns of search engine queries worldwide.•Search data has diverse applications, from tracking influenza outbreaks to e-cigarette interest.•Dialogue with researchers still must address how queries are organised and coded. Web search engines have become pervasive in recent years, obtaining information easily on a variety of topics, from customer services and goods to practical information. Beyond these search interests, however, there is growing interest in obtaining health advice or information online. As a result, health and health policy researchers are starting to take note of potential data sources for surveillance and research, such as Google Trends™, a publicly available repository of information on real-time user search patterns. While research using Google Trends™ is growing, use of the dataset still remains limited. This paper offers an overview of the use of such data in a variety of contexts, while providing information on its strengths, limitations, and recommendations for further improvement.
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ISSN:0168-8510
1872-6054
1872-6054
DOI:10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.01.001