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Research paper
Monitoring of non-cigarette tobacco use using Google Trends Patricia A Cavazos-Rehg,1 Melissa J Krauss,1 Edward L Spitznagel,2 Ashley Lowery,1 Richard A Grucza,1 Frank J Chaloupka,3 Laura Jean Bierut1 1
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA 2 Department of Mathematics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA 3 Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA Correspondence to Dr Patricia A Cavazos-Rehg, Campus Box 8134, Department of Psychiatry, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA; [email protected] Received 5 August 2013 Revised 26 December 2013 Accepted 27 December 2013 Published Online First 5 February 2014
ABSTRACT Background Google Trends is an innovative monitoring system with unique potential to monitor and predict important phenomena that may be occurring at a population level. We sought to validate whether Google Trends can additionally detect regional trends in youth and adult tobacco use. Methods We compared 2011 Google Trends relative search volume data for cigars, cigarillos, little cigars and smokeless tobacco with state prevalence of youth (grades 9–12) and adult (age 18 and older) use of these products using data from the 2011 United States state-level Youth Risk Behaviors Surveillance System and the 2010–2011 United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), respectively. We used the Pearson correlation coefficient to measure the associations. Results We found significant positive correlations between state Google Trends cigar relative search volume and prevalence of cigar use among youth (r=0.39, R2 = 0.154, p=0.018) and adults (r=0.49, R2 = 0.243, p
Research paper
Monitoring of non-cigarette tobacco use using Google Trends Patricia A Cavazos-Rehg,1 Melissa J Krauss,1 Edward L Spitznagel,2 Ashley Lowery,1 Richard A Grucza,1 Frank J Chaloupka,3 Laura Jean Bierut1 1
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA 2 Department of Mathematics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA 3 Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA Correspondence to Dr Patricia A Cavazos-Rehg, Campus Box 8134, Department of Psychiatry, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA; [email protected] Received 5 August 2013 Revised 26 December 2013 Accepted 27 December 2013 Published Online First 5 February 2014
ABSTRACT Background Google Trends is an innovative monitoring system with unique potential to monitor and predict important phenomena that may be occurring at a population level. We sought to validate whether Google Trends can additionally detect regional trends in youth and adult tobacco use. Methods We compared 2011 Google Trends relative search volume data for cigars, cigarillos, little cigars and smokeless tobacco with state prevalence of youth (grades 9–12) and adult (age 18 and older) use of these products using data from the 2011 United States state-level Youth Risk Behaviors Surveillance System and the 2010–2011 United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), respectively. We used the Pearson correlation coefficient to measure the associations. Results We found significant positive correlations between state Google Trends cigar relative search volume and prevalence of cigar use among youth (r=0.39, R2 = 0.154, p=0.018) and adults (r=0.49, R2 = 0.243, p
