Pandemic and precocious puberty - a Google trends study.

Area of Science:

• Endocrinology
• Public Health
• Digital Epidemiology

Background:

• Recent studies suggest an increase in precocious puberty (PP) among young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Factors cited include confinement stress, reduced exercise, obesity, and sleep disturbances.
• However, these studies often report a small number of cases, raising questions about the trend's validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate changes in the epidemiology of precocious puberty (PP) by analyzing global and local internet search trends.
• To compare internet search data with reported increases in PP incidence in scientific literature.

Main Methods:

• Analyzed Google Trends data for 21 PP-related search terms internationally from 2017-2021.
• Assessed local search trends in relevant countries using English and local languages.
• Utilized Relative Search Volumes and Kendall's Tau test for statistical analysis (P < 0.05).

Main Results:

• Internationally, searches for most PP terms showed no change or a decrease; only nine terms increased.
• In countries reporting a PP rise, only 5 out of 17 local/English searches showed a significant increase.
• Over half of all analyzed search terms demonstrated minimal change or a decline.

Conclusions:

• A significant discrepancy exists between reported increases in precocious puberty (PP) literature and internet search trends.
• The findings suggest that the reported rise in PP incidence may be influenced by biases in the literature.
• Internet search data did not corroborate a widespread increase in PP during the study period, contrasting with some publications.