Correlating regional aeroallergen effects on internet search activity

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Public Health
• Digital Epidemiology

Background:

• Aeroallergen exposure is a significant public health concern, leading to widespread allergic conditions.
• Understanding the relationship between environmental allergens and public health-seeking behavior is crucial for disease management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the correlation between regional aeroallergen levels and Internet search activity for allergy-related terms.
• To assess the utility of Google Trends as a proxy for monitoring allergy burdens.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective time series analysis of Google Trends data for allergy-related search terms.
• Correlation and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling were used.
• Comparison of search data with daily pollen and mold spore counts across Texas.

Main Results:

• Strong positive correlations were found between pollen counts and searches for "allergies" (r=0.798), "allergy" (r=0.781), and "pollen" (r=0.849).
• Searches for allergy symptoms showed weaker correlations with pollen and mold counts.
• ARIMA modeling confirmed the observed correlations between pollen levels and search activity.

Conclusions:

• Google Trends data for terms like "allergy" and "pollen" effectively correlate with regional pollen counts, serving as a valuable public health surveillance tool.
• These findings demonstrate the potential of digital data to provide insights into public health trends and information-seeking behaviors related to allergies.