Determining the nutritional immunity information-seeking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in India: a Google Trends data analysis

Abstract

Objective: During COVID-19, the Internet was a prime source for getting relevant updates on guidelines and desirable information. The objective of the present study was to determine the nutritional immunity information-seeking behaviour during COVID-19 in India. Design: Google Trends (GTs) data on relevant COVID-19 and nutritional topics were systematically selected and retrieved. Data on newly reported COVID-19 cases were also examined on a daily basis. The cross-correlation method was used to determine the correlation coefficient between the selected terms and daily new COVID-19 cases, and the joinpoint regression models were utilised to measure monthly percent change (MPC) in relative search volumes (RSV). Setting: Online. Participants: People using Google search during the period 1 January 2020–31 August 2020 in India. Results: The date of peak searches can be attributed to the COVID-19 guidelines announcement dates. All the nutritional terms showed a significant increase in average monthly percentage change. The higher than the average daily rise in COVID-19 cases leads to a higher than average increase in RSV of nutritional terms with the greatest association after 14–27 d. The highest mean relative search volume for nutritional terms was from Southern India (49·34 ± 7·43), and the lowest was from Western India (31·10 ± 6·30). Conclusion: There was a significant rise in the Google searches of nutritional immunity topics during COVID-19 in India. The local/regional terms can be considered for better outreach of public health guidelines or recommendations. Further automation of Google Trends using programming languages can help in real-time monitoring and planning various health/nutritional events.