Monkeypox At-a-glance from Google Trends and Reddit

Soon after the initial report of cases from the United Kingdom, monkeypox has spread internationally. Given the overall low awareness of this disease in the U.S., our study is among the first to explore how individuals’ information seeking and sharing about monkeypox is associated with its geographical differences in community transmission. Specifically, we examine how individuals in different states engage in information searching and sharing about monkeypox (using Google Trends and Reddit) and whether/how these online activities are associated with the geographical differences in confirmed cases across states. Our research questions are 1) with each state as the unit, does the ranking of search interest/frequency match the ranking of locally confirmed cases? 2) what monkeypox-related topics and queries were searched the most in Google Trends? 3) how much do individuals use Reddit to share their concerns and experiences about monkeypox? Preliminary results revealed a mismatch between the rank of monkeypox searching frequency and the rank of locally confirmed cases - individuals who reside in relatively higher-risk areas do not necessarily engage in more searching. Using Google Trends, we found the top 3 "monkeypox" related topics are: Monkeypox, Medical sign, and Vaccine. The top 3 "monkeypox" related queries are "is monkeypox", "monkeypox symptoms", and "monkeypox vaccine". Our findings also indicated an absence of sizable monkeypox discussions on Reddit.