With the numerous genomes sequenced today, it has been revealed that a noteworthy percentage of genes in a given taxon of organisms in the phylogenetic tree of life do not have orthologous sequences i...
Influenza outbreaks pose a significant threat to global public health. Traditional surveillance systems and simple algorithms often struggle to predict influenza outbreaks in an accurate and timely ma...
This study aimed to develop a predictive model for influenza outbreaks by combining Baidu search query data with traditional virological surveillance data. The goal was to improve early detection and ...
We collected virological data from the National Influenza Surveillance Network and Baidu search query data from January 2011 to July 2018, totaling 3,691,865 and 1,563,361 respective samples. Relevant...
This study revealed a high correlation between specific Baidu search terms and influenza-positive rates in both northern and southern China, except for 1 term. The search terms were categorized into 4...
Complementing traditional disease surveillance systems with information from web-based data sources can aid in detecting warning signs of influenza outbreaks earlier. However, supplementation of moder...
The most common general surgical emergency operations are laparoscopic appendicectomy, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, hernia repair, hemorrhoidectomy and colectomy. Patients commonly perform an interne...
A search was conducted on Google.com, Bing.com and Yahoo.com using the terms related to laparoscopic appendicectomy, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, hemorrhoidectomy, hernia repair and colectomy. First ...
Hundred and ninety-seven websites were analysed, 44.7% were published by institutions, 34.5% by health websites and 20.8% by independent surgeons. Mean DISCERN scores for Institutions was 54.6 ± 11.3,...
Health information on common general surgical procedures found on search engines are generally fair to good quality but still above the suggested reading level of the population. Information on surgic...
The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease burden is significant, especially in infants and children with an underlying disease. Prophylaxis with palivizumab is recommended for these high-risk grou...
The present, retrospective survey was performed between January 1, 2018 and November 14, 2021 and evaluated the correlation between national surveillance data and Google Trends data. Joinpoint regress...
A strong correlation was observed every study year (2018 [r = 0.87, p < 0.01], 2019 [r = 0.83, p < 0.01], 2020 [r = 0.83, p < 0.01], and 2021 [r = 0.96, p < 0.01]). The change-points in the Google Tre...
Our data suggested that Google Trends has the potential to enable the early identification of RSV epidemics. In countries without a national surveillance system, Google Trends may serve as an alternat...
Prolonged symptoms that occur after COVID-19 (long-COVID) vary from mild, which do not interfere with daily life, to severe, which require long-term social support. This study assessed the secular tre...
Sleep disorders are experienced by up to 40% of the population but their diagnosis is often delayed by the availability of specialists....
We propose the use of search engine activity in conjunction with a validated web-based sleep questionnaire to facilitate wide-scale screening of prevalent sleep disorders....
Search advertisements offering a web-based sleep disorder screening questionnaire were shown on the Bing search engine to individuals who indicated an interest in sleep disorders. People who clicked o...
A total of 397 users consented to participate in the study and completed the questionnaire. Of them, 132 had sufficient past query data for analysis. Our findings show that diurnal patterns of people ...
Targeted advertisements can be used as an initial screening tool for people with sleep disorders. However, search engine data are seemingly insufficient as a sole method for screening. Nevertheless, w...
Search engines generate lists of the most relevant websites using a keyword or phrase query and are integral in guiding consumer preferences. Digital information is important in the field of medicine,...
The Google search engine was used to query nine common foot and ankle-associated terms using a "search term + zip code" format for 150 zip codes divided into urban, suburban, and rural population dens...
Of 13,500 total search results, 4,992 (36.9%) were podiatry-oriented, 2,109 (15.6%) were other MD/DO-oriented, and 436 (3.2%) were FAOS-oriented. All geographic areas featured a higher number of podia...
Foot and ankle-related Internet search terms results are overwhelmingly composed of podiatry-oriented sites. Per provider, regional differences are demonstrated, with FAOS having more sites in urban a...
Level 3 (observational study)....
We introduce and quantify a relatively new form of influence: the Answer Bot Effect (ABE). In a 2015 report in PNAS, researchers demonstrated the power that biased search results have to shift opinion...
The ever-growing penetration of internet and mobile technologies into society suggests that people will increasingly use web searches to seek health-related information, including advice on first aid ...
The aim of this study was to evaluate quality of advice on first aid generated by a web search engine's question-answering system (QAS) in response to search queries concerning provision of help in co...
In December 2022-January 2023, an English-language search was carried out in Google with ten queries based on the keyword combinations (what to do OR how to help) AND (bleeding OR chest pain OR chokin...
Out of 98 QAS items generated by Google, 67.3% (...
Although the search engine's QAS responds to user's inquiries concerning assistance in health emergencies, the QAS-generated answers, as a rule, omit potentially life-saving evidence-based instruction...
Do search engine algorithms systematically expose users to content from unreliable sites? There is widespread concern that they do, but little systematic evidence that search engine algorithms, rather...
