Google Health Trends performance reflecting dengue incidence for the Brazilian states

BMC Infectious Diseases

Table 1 Availability of Google Health Trends to track dengue trends in Brazil and its states by term

	Terms	Number of terms	States
Informative terms	“aedes”, “dengue”, “mosquito”, “aegypti”, “Aedes aegypti”, “sintomas da dengue”, “dengue sintomas”	7	Brazil and all states
Uninformative terms	“aedes egípcio”, “egípcio”, “vírus da dengue”, “novo vírus da dengue”, “dengue é ‘virus”	5	Brazil and all states
Ambiguous terms	“dengue fever”	6	Brazil and BA, CE, ES, GO, MG, PB, PR, RJ, RS, SP (10 states)
	“dengue hemorrhagic fever”		SP (1 state)
	“DENV”		Brazil
	“DHF”		Brazil and BA, GO, MT, MG, PR, PR, PE, RJ, RS, SP (10 states)
	“dengue vírus”		Brazil and AM, BA, CE, DF, ES, GO, MA, MS, MG, PA, PB, PR, PE, RJ, RN, RS, RO, SC, SP (19 states)
	“mosquitoes”		Brazil and DF, MG, PR, RJ, RS, SP (6 states)

From the 19 terms explored, only seven were able to consistently track dengue incidence from Google Health Trends in Brazil (i.e., national level) and its individual states. Abbreviations of Brazilian states: AC: Acré, AL: Alagoas, AP: Amapá, AM: Amazonas, BA: Bahia, CE: Ceará, DF: Distrito Federal, ES: Espírito Santo, GO: Goiás, MA: Maranhão, MT: Mato Grosso, MS: Mato Grosso do Sul, MG: Minas Gerais, PA: Pará, PB: Paraiba, PR: Paraná, PE: Pernambuco, PI: Piauí, RJ: Rio de Janeiro, RN: Rio Grande do Norte, RS: Rio Grande do Sul, RO: Rondônia, RR: Roraima, SC: Santa Catarina, SP: São Paulo, SE: Sergipe, TO: Tocantins

ISSN: 1471-2334