Using Google Trends Data to Study Public Interest in Breast Cancer Screening in Brazil: Why Not a Pink February?

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Digital Epidemiology
• Health Communication

Background:

• Fostering interest in breast cancer screening (BCS) is a key challenge for Brazil's Ministry of Health, particularly for high-risk populations.
• National campaigns like Pink October aim to promote early breast cancer detection.
• Analyzing online search data, such as Google queries, can reveal public interest cycles and seasonality in health topics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate public interest cycles in mammography and breast cancer searches over five years using Google Trends.
• To determine if these search trends correlate with national breast cancer screening campaigns, specifically Pink October.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Google Trends to analyze weekly relative search volume (RSV) for 'mammography' and 'breast cancer' from November 2011 to October 2016.
• Normalized search data on a scale of 0 to 100, comparing RSV to annual means.
• Employed second-order polynomial trendlines to estimate overall search trends.

Main Results:

• Observed an upward trend in searches for both terms over the five-year period.
• Significant peaks in search interest for mammography and breast cancer occurred during October, exceeding annual means by up to 119.1% and 196.8%, respectively.
• Search volumes consistently decreased in December and January, forming an N-shaped pattern with peaks in October and troughs in the subsequent winter months.

Conclusions:

• Suggests repositioning Pink October campaigns to the beginning of the year to potentially extend their beneficial influence.
• Aligning screening campaigns with the start of the year may capitalize on new resolutions and routines.
• Highlights the value of analyzing online traffic data using marketing insights for optimizing public health campaign strategies.