부산대학교 도서관

BackgroundAs human society enters an era of vast and easily accessible social media, a growing number of people are exploiting the internet to search and exchange medical information. Because internet search data could reflect population interest in particular health topics, they provide a new way of understanding health concerns regarding noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and the role they play in their prevention. ObjectiveWe aimed to explore the association of internet search data for NCDs with published disease incidence and mortality rates in the United States and to grasp the health concerns toward NCDs. MethodsWe tracked NCDs by examining the correlations among the incidence rates, mortality rates, and internet searches in the United States from 2004 to 2017, and we established forecast models based on the relationship between the disease rates and internet searches. ResultsIncidence and mortality rates of 29 diseases in the United States were statistically significantly correlated with the relative search volumes (RSVs) of their search terms (P