LymeNet Flash: Lyme Disease Internet Search Volume, cool statistical data

This is topic Lyme Disease Internet Search Volume, cool statistical data in forum Activism at LymeNet Flash.

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Posted by LLYME (Member # 18687) on :

I did some playing around with the statistical search data from Google for Lyme Disease and you can see some pretty cool trends. For example you can see Lyme disease internet search rates go up every spring and summer and drop in the fall.

Tips for looking at the data, for each search it is interesting to click at "Subregion", "Metro", and "City"

Important note: This data reported by Google is search volume, aka how many people go to google.com and type in this search term so there are a lot of factors that can influence this data. People call things by different names in different parts of the country and more.

To clear up confusion, the data from Google is normalized on a scale of 0-100 and there is no way to extract the actual number of people searched from each area. The data is normalized to account for population of areas (total number of searches) and as more people use Google over the years.

So for example say you have a state that has 10 million searches a week and a state that has 100 million search a week. If 100 searches for lyme disease came from the state with 10 million search and 1000 searches came from the state with 100 million search a week they both would be normalized to have the same rank on the Google scale and map.

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Lyme Disease Search Data

2004-Present Worldwide "Lyme Disease" search volume (not as interesting as US or canada search volumes)

2004-Present US "Lyme Disease" search volume broken down by state

2004-Present US "Lyme Disease" and "Lymes Disease" search volume broken down by state, this includes those who spell lyme disease wrong as lymes:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22lyme%20disease%22%2B%22lymes%20disease%22&geo=US&cmpt=q

The US searches are very cool because you can see the more Lyme prone states have much higher search volumes

2004-Present US "Lyme Disease" search volume broken down by state each year volume graph overlapping

2004-Present Canada "Lyme Disease" search volume broken down by province

2004-Present US "Lyme disease symptoms" search volume broken down by state

Feb 2008 - August 2009 US "Under our skin" search volume broken down by state

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Tick Related Search Data

This gives you an idea where people are looking up how to remove ticks, etc.

2004-Present US "tick removal" search volume broken down by state

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Now for more fun stuff

Take a look at the data at 2004-present US search volume for "multiple sclerosis"

It follows the research data that shows it to be more prevalent in colder climates

This colder state trend also extends to other disease that have been linked to lyme but the data is not as solid.
2004-Present US "parkinson's" search volume:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=parkinson%27s&geo=US&cmpt=q

2004-Present US "chronic fatigue syndrome" search volume broken down by state

I will update this thread as I mess around with this some more.

Enjoy,
Luke

[ 05-10-2009, 03:50 AM: Message edited by: LLYME ]

Posted by bettyg (Member # 6147) on :

hi luke!

thx for doing the above and to be adding to this in future.

can you show all 50 states vs. top 10 only??

i clicked on several links and the SAME STATES were shown constantly for 1-10.

thanks for playing around; tincup is always looking for feedback/statistics; perhaps some of this she can use for future writing of papers!! [Smile]

Posted by LLYME (Member # 18687) on :

quote:
Originally posted by bettyg:

can you show all 50 states vs. top 10 only??

i clicked on several links and the SAME STATES were shown constantly for 1-10.

You can not show them in a list more then 10 but you can get the data for each state under the graph in the "Regional interest for ..." section there should be a map on the right showing search volume color coded per volume. Place your mouse over each state and you will see the relative search volume per state. You can also click the "Metro" and "City" link in the section below the graph to see more map data.

Note this is not absolute search volume, it is normalized on a scale of 0-100.

If the map or graph feature do not work you may need to update your browser or your version of adobe flash player: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

Posted by Tincup (Member # 5829) on :

LLLyme...

So YOU are the stats person! GOOD to know.

I am always lost with numbers and would love to call on you sometime.

I ALWAYS need help with numbers.

When I am rested I will check out the links.

And I heard what you are doing as a project. THANK YOU!!!!

[Big Grin]

BTW- I have another job for someone else too... I had to stop cause numbers were involved.

So if there are volunteers- wait- I'll put up a Want Ad.

[Big Grin]

Posted by LLYME (Member # 18687) on :

Tincup,
I am pretty new here and have not done much work with stats before on this site, also I have not been working on any projects (my brain is broken, haha) so you may be referring to someone else.

That being said I am willing to help out if you need to find some statistics that can be gathered off the internet.