Use of Google Trends to Understand Public Interest and Awareness in One Health Related Topics

This study sought to evaluate the use of Google Trends (GT) to explore the public’s interest and awareness related to One Health (OH), a concept that addresses the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. The searches were done for the period May 2022 to June 2023. First, a quick search on PubMed and Google Scholar was done to identify the topics related to OH generally discussed related to OH. Based on the initial search, 20 distinct topics related to One Health were identified and their GT search trends were retrieved. Both global and Indian search trends were retrieved. The results revealed that most searched topics were related to environment, public health, surveillance, and symptoms. In Indian context, the searches were majorly related to veterinary and symptoms. All these indicate a significant surge in interest in OH among the population post-COVID-19 pandemic. The search volumes related to risks, prevention, treatment, and policy were very less indicating lack of interest in these areas. Though the search trends do not indicate absolute measurable values, these findings can be used as a valuable resource for monitoring public search activities related to OH in addition to offering insights that may forecast future actions concerning interest and awareness.