Abstract
BackgroundAnalyzing the disease-related web searches of Internet users provides insight into the interests of the general population as well as the healthcare industry, which can be used to shape health care policies.MethodsWe analyzed the searches related to neurological diseases and drugs used in neurology using the most popular search engines in the US, Google and Bing/Yahoo.ResultsWe found that the most frequently searched diseases were common diseases such as dementia or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), as well as medium frequency diseases with high social impact such as Parkinson’s disease, MS and ALS. The most frequently searched CNS drugs were generic drugs used for pain, followed by sleep disorders, dementia, ADHD, stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Regarding the interests of the healthcare industry, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, MS, ALS, meningitis, and hypersomnia received the higher advertising bids for neurological diseases, while painkillers and drugs for neuropathic pain, drugs for dementia or insomnia, and triptans had the highest advertising bidding prices.ConclusionsWeb searches reflect the interest of people and the healthcare industry, and are based either on the frequency or social impact of the disease.
Highlights
The burden of neurological diseases is prominent around the world, contributing to 2–6% in the World Health Organization’s analysis “Global Burden of Diseases 2010”[1]
Web searches reflect the interest of people and the healthcare industry, and are based either on the frequency or social impact of the disease
We evaluated the interest of people in neurological diseases by using the volume of search terms related to neurological diseases in the two most important search engines Google and Bing/Yahoo (S1 File)
Summary
The burden of neurological diseases is prominent around the world, contributing to 2–6% in the World Health Organization’s analysis “Global Burden of Diseases 2010”[1]. An approach to get additional information directly from the general population is analyzing Web searches, known as the infodemiology approach[2]. Patients with neurological diseases are some of the most active on the Web and many are digital health users[6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] In parallel, this approach can reveal the interests of the healthcare industry in a given health area by providing information about web search advertising. Analyzing the disease-related web searches of Internet users provides insight into the interests of the general population as well as the healthcare industry, which can be used to shape health care policies
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