TY - GEN
T1 - Weekly pattern for online information seeking on HIV - a multi-language study
AU - Gabarron, Elia
AU - Lau, Annie Y. S.
AU - Wynn, Rolf
N1 - Copyright the Publisher 2016. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Studies have demonstrated that there are weekly patterns of information-seeking activities on sexual health topics in some selected languages. However, it is not known if this weekly pattern is found across the ten most commonly-used languages on the Internet, and whether international public events might have an impact on these information-seeking patterns. The objective of this study is to examine sexual health information-seeking patterns for searches performed in several languages, and also to analyze the potential impact of public events on these information-seeking rates. We extracted the number of hits on the HIV article on Wikipedia for the ten most used languages on the Internet for all of the year 2015. The results confirm the existence of a weekly pattern for the searches performed in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, French, and German. But the weekly pattern was not found for searches in Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, and Malay. The number of HIV queries increased significantly during two public events, the World AIDS Day, and the announcement regarding the HIV-positive condition of the celebrity actor Charlie Sheen. The existence of higher peaks in searching rates at the beginning of the week for some languages, and the increase in queries related to public events could represent valuable opportunities for public campaigns promoting sexual health.
AB - Studies have demonstrated that there are weekly patterns of information-seeking activities on sexual health topics in some selected languages. However, it is not known if this weekly pattern is found across the ten most commonly-used languages on the Internet, and whether international public events might have an impact on these information-seeking patterns. The objective of this study is to examine sexual health information-seeking patterns for searches performed in several languages, and also to analyze the potential impact of public events on these information-seeking rates. We extracted the number of hits on the HIV article on Wikipedia for the ten most used languages on the Internet for all of the year 2015. The results confirm the existence of a weekly pattern for the searches performed in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, French, and German. But the weekly pattern was not found for searches in Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, and Malay. The number of HIV queries increased significantly during two public events, the World AIDS Day, and the announcement regarding the HIV-positive condition of the celebrity actor Charlie Sheen. The existence of higher peaks in searching rates at the beginning of the week for some languages, and the increase in queries related to public events could represent valuable opportunities for public campaigns promoting sexual health.
KW - health information-seeking behavior
KW - periodicity
KW - Wikipedia
KW - HIV
KW - internet
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028287071&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3233/978-1-61499-678-1-778
DO - 10.3233/978-1-61499-678-1-778
M3 - Conference proceeding contribution
C2 - 27577492
SN - 9781614996774
VL - 228
T3 - Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
SP - 778
EP - 782
BT - Exploring complexity in health
A2 - Hoerbst, Alexander
A2 - Hackl, Werner O.
A2 - de Keizer, Nicolette
A2 - Prokosch, Hans-Ulrich
A2 - Hercigonja-Szekeres, Mira
A2 - de Lusignan, Simon
PB - IOS Press
CY - Amsterdam
T2 - Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) Conference at Conference on Health - Exploring Complexity (HEC) - An Interdisciplinary Systems Approach
Y2 - 28 August 2016 through 2 September 2016
ER -