title: Novel data sources for women's health research: mapping breast screening online information seeking through Google trends.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Millions of people use online search engines everyday to find health-related information and voluntarily share their personal health status and behaviors in various Web sites. Thus, data from tracking of online information seeker's behavior offer potential opportunities for use in public health surveillance and research. Google Trends is a feature of Google which allows Internet users to graph the frequency of searches for a single term or phrase over time or by geographic region. We used Google Trends to describe patterns of information-seeking behavior in the subject of dense breasts and to examine their correlation with the passage or introduction of dense breast notification legislation.
  
  
  METHODS
  To capture the temporal variations of information seeking about dense breasts, the Web search query "dense breast" was entered in the Google Trends tool. We then mapped the dates of legislative actions regarding dense breasts that received widespread coverage in the lay media to information-seeking trends about dense breasts over time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Newsworthy events and legislative actions appear to correlate well with peaks in search volume of "dense breast". Geographic regions with the highest search volumes have passed, denied, or are currently considering the dense breast legislation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study demonstrated that any legislative action and respective news coverage correlate with increase in information seeking for "dense breast" on Google, suggesting that Google Trends has the potential to serve as a data source for policy-relevant research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Michigan School of Medicine, University Hospital Floor B2 Rm A209H, 1500 E Medical Center Dr SPC 5030, Ann Arbor, MI 4810. Electronic address: soodabeh.fazeli@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Soudabeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fazeli Dehkordy
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Michigan School of Medicine, University Hospital Floor B2 Rm A209H, 1500 E Medical Center Dr SPC 5030, Ann Arbor, MI 4810; Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Ruth C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Carlos
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Institute for Social Research, Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Kelli S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.affiliation: Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
authors.forename: Vanessa K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Dalton
mesh_terms: D000071060:Breast Density; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D066275:Health Information Exchange / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D020407:Internet; D042361:Mammary Glands, Human / Q000002:abnormalities; D008327:Mammography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D057386:Search Engine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States; D016387:Women's Health / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Dense breast; Google Trends; information seeking; legislation