Unit Suicide Research & Mental Health Promotion, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. Electronic address: thomas.niederkrotenthaler@meduniwien.ac.at.
Media recommendations for suicide reporting are recommended to prevent imitative suicide but little is known about social media reactions to different revelations about celebrity suicide.
Using the Twitter Application Programming Interface (API), we recorded public tweets mentioning Avicii from the day when his death was reported (N?=?2,865,292). We compared that data with a dataset of random tweets. Furthermore, we recorded tweets including suicide in 124 languages before Avicii's death (N?=?5,939,107). We processed English tweets mentioning Avicii with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to quantify the frequency of affects and related linguistic signals. We also processed the text of tweets to detect tweets mentioning the suicide method, and we retrieved the list of followers of users who tweeted about the method. We constructed reply networks from the dataset, analysing three networks corresponding to the major news events about Avicii's death.
Avicii's suicide sparked immediate strong interest with both positive (?²?=?781.06, p?
Laval University, Département de médecine familiale et de médecine d'urgence, Hôpital St-François d'Assise, D6-728, 10 rue de l'Espinay, Quebec city, QC G1L 3L5. michel.labrecque@mfa.ulaval.ca.
To compare the ability of users of 2 medical search engines, InfoClinique and the Trip database, to provide correct answers to clinical questions and to explore the perceived effects of the tools on the clinical decision-making process.
Randomized trial.
Three family medicine units of the family medicine program of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University in Quebec city, Que.
Fifteen second-year family medicine residents.
Residents generated 30 structured questions about therapy or preventive treatment (2 questions per resident) based on clinical encounters. Using an Internet platform designed for the trial, each resident answered 20 of these questions (their own 2, plus 18 of the questions formulated by other residents, selected randomly) before and after searching for information with 1 of the 2 search engines. For each question, 5 residents were randomly assigned to begin their search with InfoClinique and 5 with the Trip database.
The ability of residents to provide correct answers to clinical questions using the search engines, as determined by third-party evaluation. After answering each question, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their perception of the engine's effect on the decision-making process in clinical practice.
Of 300 possible pairs of answers (1 answer before and 1 after the initial search), 254 (85%) were produced by 14 residents. Of these, 132 (52%) and 122 (48%) pairs of answers concerned questions that had been assigned an initial search with InfoClinique and the Trip database, respectively. Both engines produced an important and similar absolute increase in the proportion of correct answers after searching (26% to 62% for InfoClinique, for an increase of 36%; 24% to 63% for the Trip database, for an increase of 39%; P = .68). For all 30 clinical questions, at least 1 resident produced the correct answer after searching with either search engine. The mean (SD) time of the initial search for each question was 23.5 (7.6) minutes with InfoClinique and 22.3 (7.8) minutes with the Trip database (P = .30). Participants' perceptions of each engine's effect on the decision-making process were very positive and similar for both search engines.
Family medicine residents' ability to provide correct answers to clinical questions increased dramatically and similarly with the use of both InfoClinique and the Trip database. These tools have strong potential to increase the quality of medical care.
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Norovirus outbreaks severely disrupt healthcare systems. We evaluated whether Webs?k, an internet-based surveillance system using search engine data, improved norovirus surveillance and response in Sweden. We compared Webs?k users' characteristics with the general population, cross-correlated weekly Webs?k searches with laboratory notifications between 2006 and 2013, compared the time Webs?k and laboratory data crossed the epidemic threshold and surveyed infection control teams about their perception and use of Webs?k. Users of Webs?k were not representative of the general population. Webs?k correlated with laboratory data (b?=?0.88-0.89) and gave an earlier signal to the onset of the norovirus season compared with laboratory-based surveillance. 17/21 (81%) infection control teams answered the survey, of which 11 (65%) believed Webs?k could help with infection control plans. Webs?k is a low-resource, easily replicable system that detects the norovirus season as reliably as laboratory data, but earlier. Using Webs?k in routine surveillance can help infection control teams prepare for the yearly norovirus season.
The assumption behind the presented work is that the information people search for on the internet reflects the disease status in society. By having access to this source of information, epidemiologists can get a valuable complement to the traditional surveillance and potentially get new and timely epidemiological insights. For this purpose, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control collaborates with a medical web site in Sweden.
We built an application consisting of two conceptual parts. One part allows for trends, based on user specified requests, to be extracted from anonymous web query data from a Swedish medical web site. The second conceptual part permits tailored analyses of particular diseases, where more complex statistical methods are applied to the data. To evaluate the epidemiological relevance of the output, we compared Google search data and search data from the medical web site.
In the paper, we give concrete examples of the output from the web query-based system. We also present results from the comparison between data from the search engine Google and search data from the national medical web site.
The application is in regular use at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control. A system based on web queries is flexible in that it can be adapted to any disease; we get information on other individuals than those who seek medical care; and the data do not suffer from reporting delays. Although Google data are based on a substantially larger search volume, search patterns obtained from the medical web site may still convey more information from an epidemiological perspective. Furthermore we can see advantages with having full access to the raw data.
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There is abundant global interest in using syndromic data from population-wide health information systems--referred to as eHealth resources--to improve infectious disease surveillance. Recently, the necessity for these systems to achieve two potentially conflicting requirements has been emphasized. First, they must be evidence-based; second, they must be adjusted for the diversity of populations, lifestyles, and environments.
The primary objective was to examine correlations between data from Google Flu Trends (GFT), computer-supported telenursing centers, health service websites, and influenza case rates during seasonal and pandemic influenza outbreaks. The secondary objective was to investigate associations between eHealth data, media coverage, and the interaction between circulating influenza strain(s) and the age-related population immunity.
An open cohort design was used for a five-year study in a Swedish county (population 427,000). Syndromic eHealth data were collected from GFT, telenursing call centers, and local health service website visits at page level. Data on mass media coverage of influenza was collected from the major regional newspaper. The performance of eHealth data in surveillance was measured by correlation effect size and time lag to clinically diagnosed influenza cases.
Local media coverage data and influenza case rates showed correlations with large effect sizes only for the influenza A (A) pH1N1 outbreak in 2009 (r=.74, 95% CI .42-.90; P
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The Polar Data Catalogue is a database of metadata and data that describes, indexes, and provides access to diverse data sets generated by Arctic and Antarctic researchers. The metadata records follow ISO 19115 and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standard formats to provide exchange with other data centres. The records cover a wide range of disciplines from natural sciences and policy, to health and social sciences. The PDC Geospatial Search tool is available to the public and researchers alike and allows searching data using a mapping interface and other parameters.
This comprehensive search database combines NIH project databases and funding records, PubMed abstracts, full-text articles from PubMed Central, and information from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with a robust search engine, allowing users to locate descriptions and funding details on NIH-funded projects along with research results that cite the NIH support.
Physicians often search for information to improve patient care. We evaluated how nephrologists use online information sources for this purpose.
In this cross-sectional study (2008 to 2010), a random sample of Canadian nephrologists completed a survey of their online search practices. We queried respondents on their searching preferences, practices and use of 9 online information sources.
Respondents (n=115; 75% response rate) comprised both academic (59%) and community-based (41%) nephrologists. Respondents were an average of 48 years old and were in practice for an average of 15 years. Nephrologists used a variety of online sources to retrieve information on patient treatment including UpToDate (92%), PubMed (89%), Google (76%) and Ovid MEDLINE (55%). Community-based nephrologists were more likely to consult UpToDate first (91%), while academic nephrologists were divided between UpToDate (58%) and PubMed (41%). When searching bibliographic resources such as PubMed, 80% of nephrologists scan a maximum of 40 citations (the equivalent of 2 search pages in PubMed). Searching practices did not differ by age, sex or years in practice.
Nephrologists routinely use a variety of online resources to search for information for patient care. These include bibliographic databases, general search engines and specialized medical resources.
The incidence of melanoma has been rising worldwide. One possible reason for this is natural and artificial UV exposure. Only little data on actual consumer statistics from tanning studios and the usage of sunscreen are available. Therefore, it is difficult to describe trends for both and identify the impact of preventive measures.
To gain knowledge about the popularity of 'tanning bed' and 'sunscreen', normalized search volumes for both search queries were obtained from Google Trends for 11 countries between January 2004 and June 2016.
With few exceptions, worldwide interest in 'tanning bed' has been declining, whereas interest in 'sunscreen' has been increasing. The assessed countries from the Southern Hemisphere showed minor interest in tanning compared to the Northern Hemisphere. Both search queries were observed to fluctuate in a seasonal pattern. Skin cancer prevention measures influence the interest in tanning beds and sunscreen.
Google Trends data can act as a first surrogate marker to evaluate the influence of skin cancer campaigns on the popularity of tanning beds and sunscreen. Fine-tuning of skin cancer campaigns according to seasonal and geographic trends and behaviors may help to maximize their success.
