Analysis of public search interest towards immune system improvement during the COVID-19 pandemic using Google Trends

Abstract

In combating COVID-19, maintaining the immune system is important. Providing this information to the general population will increase public awareness towards improving their immune system. The use of Google Trends for exploring web behavior related to a topic or search term also considered as a tool for monitoring public awareness to help risk communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the use of Google Trends to monitor public awareness to immune system improvement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. This quantitative and qualitative research used time-series data from 31 December 2019 to 2 May 2020. The time-lag correlation analysis was performed to compare between relative search volume (RSV) of “Vitamin C”, “Vaksin” (Vaccine), “Berjemur” (Sunbathing) from Google Trends (GT), and the number of reported COVID-19 new cases. Validation using time-lag correlation shows the significant correlation between RSV keywords related to public awareness towards immune system improvement and the number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia in 1-3 days before an increase in the number of cases occurs. Google Trends has the potential to become an early warning system and a tool for monitoring risk communication towards immune system improvement during the COVID-19 pandemic by Indonesia Government.