Social listening for the identification of information voids on early childhood caries based on Google search data

This study aims to identify possible early childhood caries (ECC)-related information voids in different countries using both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Data were collected from the Google Trends platform using topics related to a taxonomy previously developed. Searches were analyzed for two time periods: the last 7 days and the last 30 days before the data collection dates. Two independent investigators classified search data from 21 countries as either related to ECC or not. For ECC-related terms, relative search volume, relative velocity, and relative acceleration were calculated. In addition, question-like search queries were identified for each topic and country.

Potential information voids were identified across nine themes: teeth cleaning, dental floss, toothbrush, oral hygiene, poor oral hygiene, antibiotics, baby bottle, dental caries, and child oral health. The topics dental caries, dental floss, toothbrush, teeth cleaning, and oral hygiene showed the highest search volumes, relative velocities and accelerations. Mexico, Brazil, and France were the countries with the highest number of ECC-related search topics. The most frequent question-like queries included "what is dental caries," "how to use dental floss," "how to brush teeth," "how long to brush teeth," and "what is oral health."

This study identified potential ECC-related information voids across multiple countries, revealing persistent public uncertainties concerning specific aspects of dental caries. The findings can inform more effective health communication strategies to strengthen digital health literacy and prevent the widespread dissemination of misinformation.