Leveraging Big Data for Exploring Occupational Diseases-Related Interest at the Level of Scientific Community, Media Coverage and Novel Data Streams: The Example of Silicosis as a Pilot Study.
OBJECTIVE
Silicosis is an untreatable but preventable occupational disease, caused by exposure to silica. It can progressively evolve to lung impairment, respiratory failure and death, even after exposure has ceased. However, little is known about occupational diseases-related interest at the level of scientific community, media coverage and web behavior. This article aims at filling in this gap of knowledge, taking the silicosis as a case study.


METHODS
We investigated silicosis-related web-activities using Google Trends (GT) for capturing the Internet behavior worldwide in the years 2004-2015. GT-generated data were, then, compared with the silicosis-related scientific production (i.e., PubMed and Google Scholar), the media coverage (i.e., Google news), the Wikipedia traffic (i.e, Wikitrends) and the usage of new media (i.e., YouTube and Twitter).


RESULTS
A peak in silicosis-related web searches was noticed in 2010-2011: interestingly, both scientific articles production and media coverage markedly increased after these years in a statistically significant way. The public interest and the level of the public engagement were witnessed by an increase in likes, comments, hashtags, and re-tweets. However, it was found that only a small fraction of the posted/uploaded material contained accurate scientific information.


CONCLUSIONS
GT could be useful to assess the reaction of the public and the level of public engagement both to novel risk-factors associated to occupational diseases, and possibly related changes in disease natural history, and to the effectiveness of preventive workplace practices and legislative measures adopted to improve occupational health. Further, occupational clinicians should become aware of the topics most frequently searched by patients and proactively address these concerns during the medical examination. Institutional bodies and organisms should be more present and active in digital tools and media to disseminate and communicate scientifically accurate information. This manuscript should be intended as preliminary, exploratory communication, paving the way for further studies.
Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School of Public Health, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
Nicola Luigi
NL
Bragazzi
Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
Guglielmo
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0497-4879
G
Dini
Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
Alessandra
A
Toletone
Department of Neurology, Franz Tappeiner Hospital, Merano, Italy.|Department of Neurological, Biomedical, and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Francesco
F
Brigo
Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.|Occupational Medicine Unit, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST, Genoa, Italy.
Paolo
P
Durando
D001634:Bibliographies as Topic; D057225:Data Mining; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008402:Mass Media; D009784:Occupational Diseases; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011639:Public Opinion; D012829:Silicosis