5 Google Trends On Lyme Disease

I have been having fun with this specialized search tool on Google called Trends, and also an advanced trend tool, Insights. You might want to give them a try here:

http://www.google.com/trends
http://www.google.com/insights

In particular, I've been looking up "Lyme disease" and "Borrelia burgdorferi" and breaking down the search into different data sets by region.

Check this out...

Between 2005 and 2010,  of all worldwide Google searches related to Lyme disease, these were the top keyword searches made:

Notice that most people worldwide have been interested in knowing about Lyme disease symptoms, ticks, and treatment - with tests weighing in at #9.  Some unfortunate people do not know how to spell  "Lyme disease" properly.

Now, take a look at this... Here is a list of the top ten worldwide keyword searches related to Lyme disease which are on the increase between 2005-2010:

There is, oddly, a 90% increase in people looking up lupus symptoms associated with Lyme disease, and 90% increase from people trying to find out if Lyme disease is contagious. Why is that?

"Lyme disease doctors" went up by 90%. Symptoms in some combination of spelling falls to #4 and #5 - but notice that there is a 70-90% increase in searches for these terms during the past 5 years.

Does this reflect an increase in overall awareness of Lyme disease - or does this reflect an increase in the number of people who think they have or already do have Lyme disease?

Here, chronic Lyme disease is gaining by 50% . In the previous five years, this reflects growing exposure to the idea of chronic Lyme disease - but through which channels is not tracked here.

In terms of which countries have been running searches on "Lyme disease", who do you think ranks in the top ten?

You might find some of this predictable, and some of this interesting:

Visually, the above chart looks like this on a world map:

(If you use Google Insights, you can get an animated gif showing how the search for Lyme disease has changed around the world between 2005-2010... Try it by using Trends special tool, Insights, here: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Lyme%20disease&cmpt=q)

The top five ranking countries which look up "Lyme disease" make sense to me. Australia would have surprised me in the past, but now it is not a surprising entity since Karl McManus' death and the growing awareness of Lyme disease in both patients coming back to Australia from overseas and an increasing number of patients who claim to have been infected within Australia itself.

But the Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, India, and Singapore are somewhat surprising to me. New Zealand probably the least surprising of this group - but none of these are countries one readily associates with Lyme disease. Other types of tickborne infections - yes. Lyme? Not so much. 

How many documented cases of Lyme disease are found in these countries? What is the reason for searches on "Lyme disease" from these locations? Are they from expats and travelers who are wondering if they caught Lyme disease elsewhere or caught it within those countries listed? Are they academic searches? 

Let's look at "Lyme disease" as a keyword search in the United States...

Is any of this surprising, that the historically most endemic states  and cities would have the highest number of searches? No.

But check this out - now, what about "Borrelia burgdorferi" as a search? Who is looking these keywords up the most?

When it comes to the good ol' USA, these are the top states and cities:

Now,  I suspect I hear everyone from Connecticut and outside it letting out a huge, "Well, duh!" in response to this ranking. 

Ranked states from #2-#6 are also not a surprise. But #7, Louisiana, comes as somewhat as a surprise to me - especially as it is ranked above Michigan and New Jersey.

Has there been a marked increase in Lyme disease cases in Louisiana, or increased awareness about it for some reason?

Note, also, that the last three cities listed are not in areas which many medical professionals think of as hotbeds of Lyme disease activity, though the recent IOM summary report on tickborne illnesses noted an increase in infection number and diversity in the south and the CDC has stated for some time that Northern California has a growing number of Lyme disease cases (and in some counties, it is highly endemic). Oregon, being part of the Pacific Northwest CDC surveillance corridor, should be considered more often as an area where Lyme disease is endemic.

What happens if we look at how the entire world searches for "Borrelia burgdorferi"?

Czech Republic and Netherlands are not surprising to me at all. They do a lot of Lyme disease research, plus there are a lot of cases there.  None of those countries come as a surprise to me at all.

The cities list is somewhat different here, though. When we look at "Borrelia burgdorferi" as a global data set and not just the United States, it's clear American cities still have the highest number of searches collectively for "Borrelia burgdorferi" even though the United States ranks #3. 

Why don't more European cities rank higher?  Is it an issue of population density of American cities versus European ones? Not sure of what I'm seeing here.

And finally, to acknowledge US neighbors to the north, here is who in Canada is looking up  "Lyme disease":

If there is anyone from Canada reading this blog, what do you think of these rankings? Do you have research and surveillance information that would correlate to these areas being ranked in order of endemic Lyme disease? 

I just thought I'd share this tool with everyone, and I encourage you to use it for your own observation of trends. It does leave me with questions. Interesting.

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