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Google Trends can improve surveillance of Type 2 diabetes

Overview of attention for article published in Scientific Reports, July 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (96th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
10 news outlets
blogs
2 blogs
twitter
12 X users

Readers on

mendeley
76 Mendeley
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Article details
Title
Google Trends can improve surveillance of Type 2 diabetes
Published in
Scientific Reports, July 2017
DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-05091-9
Pubmed ID
Authors
Abstract

Recent studies demonstrate that people are increasingly looking online to assess their health, with reasons varying from personal preferences and beliefs to inability to book a timely appointment with their local medical practice. Records of these activities represent a new source of data about the health of populations, but which is currently unaccounted for by disease surveillance models. This could potentially be useful as evidence of individuals' perception of bodily changes and self-diagnosis of early symptoms of an emerging disease. We make use of the Experian geodemographic Mosaic dataset in order to extract Type 2 diabetes candidate risk variables and compare their temporal relationships with the search keywords, used to describe early symptoms of the disease on Google. Our results demonstrate that Google Trends can detect early signs of diabetes by monitoring combinations of keywords, associated with searches for hypertension treatment and poor living conditions; Combined search semantics, related to obesity, how to quit smoking and improve living conditions (deprivation) can be also employed, however, may lead to less accurate results.

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X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 12 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley demographics

Mendeley demographics

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 76 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
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Geographical breakdown

Geographical breakdown
Country Count As %
Unknown 76 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status
Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 12 16%
Student > Master 11 14%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 13%
Other 5 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 5 7%
Other 14 18%
Unknown 19 25%
Readers by discipline
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 11 14%
Computer Science 9 12%
Social Sciences 7 9%
Nursing and Health Professions 4 5%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 3 4%
Other 15 20%
Unknown 27 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 95. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 June 2021.
All research outputs
#524,156
of 29,615,412 outputs
Outputs from Scientific Reports
#5,715
of 164,481 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#9,378
of 336,128 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scientific Reports
#162
of 5,347 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 29,615,412 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 164,481 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,128 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 5,347 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.