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Google, Public Health, and Alcohol and Drug Policy

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Handbook of Substance Misuse and Addictions

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Abstract

Ubiquitous use, systematic organization, availability, and access to data have made it possible to utilize the various Google products for public health purposes. Google Trends (GT) is the most commonly utilized tool; Google Earth and News are two other potential candidates. Researchers have used GT to track and forecast infectious diseases, especially influenza-like illness. The use of GT in substance misuse research is a relatively novel phenomenon. Google tool-based research in substance misuse is primarily focused on (a) visualization of trends of use of alcohol, drugs, new psychoactive substance, and electronic nicotine delivery systems and (b) correlation of GT dataset with the existing national or regional data, to show the reliability of GT to measure the use, availability, and consequences of substance misuse. Preliminary research indicates a potential for GT-based forecasting and surveillance for drug and alcohol use. Lack of standardized methods of data capture and analysis, limited research from non-English-speaking countries, and from countries and territories with restricted internet access are a few of the many caveats in any Google tool-based analysis. Future research should address these limitations.

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Abbreviations

API:

Application programming interface

ENDS:

Electronic nicotine delivery systems

EVALI:

E-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury

GE:

Google Earth

GETH:

Google extended trends API for health

GFT:

Google Flu Trends

GIS:

Geographic information system

GT:

Google Trends

HNB:

Heat-not-burn

ILI:

Influenza-like illness

ITU:

International Telecommunication Union

LLC:

Limited liability corporation

LOWESS:

Locally weighted scatterplot smoothing

MDMA:

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine

NPS:

New psychoactive substances

NRT:

Nicotine replacement therapy

RSV:

Relative search volume

UK:

United Kingdom

UN:

United Nations

USA:

United States of America

WTS:

Waterpipe tobacco smoking

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry & Drug De-addiction and Treatment Centre, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India

    Abhishek Ghosh

  2. Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, India

    Shinjini Choudhury

  3. Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Panchayat Training Institute, Daburgram Jasidih, Deoghar, Jharkhand, India

    Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha

Authors
  1. Abhishek Ghosh
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  2. Shinjini Choudhury
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  3. Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, London, UK

    Vinood B. Patel

  2. School of Life Course and Population Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King’s College London, London, UK

    Victor R. Preedy

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Ghosh, A., Choudhury, S., Narasimha, V.L. (2022). Google, Public Health, and Alcohol and Drug Policy. In: Patel, V.B., Preedy, V.R. (eds) Handbook of Substance Misuse and Addictions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92392-1_58

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