Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Dermatology, JAMA, University of Pennsylvania / 06.07.2017
Google Searches Valuable Source of Cancer Incidence and Mortality Data
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Mackenzie R. Wehner, MD, MPhil
Department of Dermatology
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: For some diseases, we have national registries, in which information about every person with that disease is entered for research purposes. For other diseases, unfortunately, we do not have such registries. There are growing opportunities to use information like internet searches to better understand behaviors and diseases, however. Our study was a proof-of-concept: we aimed to find out whether internet searches for diseases correlated with known incidence (how many people are diagnosed with the disease) and mortality (how many people die of the disease) rates. E.g. does the number of people who searched 'lung cancer' online correlate with the number of people who we know were diagnosed with or who died of lung cancer during that same time period? This is important to know if researchers in the future want to use internet search data for diseases where we lack registry information.
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