Abstract
BackgroundThe internet has made significant contributions towards health education. Analyzing the pattern of online behavior regarding meningitis and vaccinations may be worthwhile. It is hypothesized that the online search patterns in meningitis are correlated with its number of cases and the search patterns of its related vaccines.MethodsThis was an infodemiological study that determined the relationship among online search interest in meningitis, its worldwide number of cases and its associated vaccines. Using Google Trends™ Search Volume Indices (SVIs), we evaluated the search queries “meningitis,” “pneumococcal vaccine,” “BCG vaccine,” “meningococcal vaccine” and “influenza vaccine” in January 2021, covering January 2008 to December 2020. Spearman rank correlation was used to determine correlations between these queries.ResultsThe worldwide search interest in meningitis from 2008 to 2020 showed an average SVI of 46 ± 8.8. The most searched topics were symptoms, vaccines, and infectious agents with SVIs of 100, 52, and 39, respectively. The top three countries with the highest search interest were Ghana, Kazakhstan, and Kenya. There were weak, but statistically significant correlations between meningitis and the BCG (ρ = 0.369, p < 0.001) and meningococcal (ρ = 0.183, p < 0.05) vaccines. There were no statistically significant associations between the number of cases, influenza vaccine, and pneumococcal vaccine.ConclusionThe relationships among the Google SVIs for meningitis and its related vaccines and number of cases data were inconsistent and remained unclear. Future infodemiological studies may expand their scopes to social media, semantics, and big data for more robust conclusions.
Highlights
Meningitis is a neurologic emergency that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccinations have reduced the incidence of meningitis in Africa by as much as 58% and the risk of epidemics has decreased by 60% [2]
Our study shows that people who search for meningitis on Google looked for definitions of the disease and its symptoms
Summary
Meningitis is a neurologic emergency that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. It is the inflammation of the meninges of the brain and spinal cord and may have various etiologies such as infectious, autoimmune, paraneoplastic and even drug-related [1]. It has several risk factors such as human immunodeficiency virus infection, malnutrition, overcrowding, and incomplete vaccinations. It is hypothesized that the online search patterns in meningitis are correlated with its number of cases and the search patterns of its related vaccines
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