TY - JOUR
T1 - Cancer information seeking in the digital age
T2 - Effects of angelina jolie's prophylactic mastectomy announcement
AU - Noar, Seth M.
AU - Althouse, Benjamin M.
AU - Ayers, John W.
AU - Francis, Diane B.
AU - Ribisl, Kurt M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 The Author(s).
PY - 2015/1/20
Y1 - 2015/1/20
N2 - Objective. This study used digital surveillance to examine the impact of Angelina Jolie's prophylactic mastectomy announcement on cancer information seeking.Methods. We analyzed 4 categories of breast cancer-related Internet search queries from 2010 to 2013 in the United States.Results. Compared with the preceding 6 weeks, general information queries were 112% (95% confidence interval [CI], 79-146) higher the day of the announcement and remained 35% (95% CI, 22-49) higher over the week after the editorial. Risk assessment queries were 165% (95% CI, 110-222) higher the day of the announcement and 52% (95% CI, 31-75) higher across the week. Genetics and treatment queries showed little volume before the announcement but increased 2154% (95% CI, 1550-7076) and 9900% (95% CI, 3196-1,064,000) the day of, respectively, and remained higher across the week (812% [95% CI, 402-3913] and 2625% [95% CI, 551-317,000]). All query categories returned to normal volumes by the beginning of the second week.Conclusion. Jolie's unique announcement spurred significant information seeking about breast cancer genetic testing and treatment procedures, although the surge in queries returned to preannouncement levels after 1 week. Future research should apply digital methods to advance our understanding of cancer information seeking in the digital age.
AB - Objective. This study used digital surveillance to examine the impact of Angelina Jolie's prophylactic mastectomy announcement on cancer information seeking.Methods. We analyzed 4 categories of breast cancer-related Internet search queries from 2010 to 2013 in the United States.Results. Compared with the preceding 6 weeks, general information queries were 112% (95% confidence interval [CI], 79-146) higher the day of the announcement and remained 35% (95% CI, 22-49) higher over the week after the editorial. Risk assessment queries were 165% (95% CI, 110-222) higher the day of the announcement and 52% (95% CI, 31-75) higher across the week. Genetics and treatment queries showed little volume before the announcement but increased 2154% (95% CI, 1550-7076) and 9900% (95% CI, 3196-1,064,000) the day of, respectively, and remained higher across the week (812% [95% CI, 402-3913] and 2625% [95% CI, 551-317,000]). All query categories returned to normal volumes by the beginning of the second week.Conclusion. Jolie's unique announcement spurred significant information seeking about breast cancer genetic testing and treatment procedures, although the surge in queries returned to preannouncement levels after 1 week. Future research should apply digital methods to advance our understanding of cancer information seeking in the digital age.
KW - breast cancer
KW - cancer communication
KW - cancer information seeking
KW - digital surveillance
KW - genetic testing
KW - prophylactic mastectomy
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U2 - 10.1177/0272989X14556130
DO - 10.1177/0272989X14556130
M3 - Article
C2 - 25349187
AN - SCOPUS:84919466014
SN - 0272-989X
VL - 35
SP - 16
EP - 21
JO - Medical Decision Making
JF - Medical Decision Making
IS - 1
ER -
