Trends and Seasonality of Information Searches Carried Out through Google on Nutrition and Healthy Diet in Relation to Occupational Health: Infodemiological Study

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze and relate the population interest through information search trends on Nutrition and Healthy Diet (HD) with the Occupational Health (OH). Ecological and correlational study of the Relative Search Volume (RSV) obtained from Google Trends query, segmented in two searched periods concerning antiquity; date of query: 20 April 2021. The RSV trends for the analyzed three Topics were: Nutrition (R2 = 0.02), HD (R2 = 0.07) and OH (R2 = -0.72). There was a good positive correlation between Nutrition and OH (R = 0.56, p < 0.001) and a moderate one between HD and OH (R = 0.32, p < 0.001). According to seasons, differences were verified between RSV means in the Topics HD (p < 0.01) and OH (p < 0.001). Temporal dependence was demonstrated on Nutrition searches (Augmented Dickey-Fuller = -2.35, p > 0.05). There was only a significant relationship between the RSV Topic HD (p < 0.05) for the Developing and Least Developed countries. The data on the analyzed RSV demonstrated diminishing interest in the search information on HD and OH as well as a clearly positive trend change in recent years for Nutrition. A good positive correlation was observed between the RSV of nutrition and OH whereas the correlation between HD and OH was moderate. There were no milestones found that may report a punctual event leading to the improvement of information searches. Temporal dependence was corroborated in the RSV on Nutrition, but not in the other two Topics. Strangely, only an association was found on HD searches between the Developing and Least Developed Countries. The study of information search trends may provide useful information on the population's interest in the disease data, as well as would gradually allow the analysis of differences in popularity, or interest even between different countries. Thus, this information might be used as a guide for public health approaches regarding nutrition and a healthy diet at work.