Correlation of Lung Cancer Incidence and Mortality with Internet Search Data in US States: 2004 to 2018

Background: Internet search data reflect population's concern on health topics in near-real time and can serve as an supplementary metric of disease characteristics. We present a detailed analysis of the association among Google relative search volumes (RSV), lung cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United State. We forecast the trends of lung cancer on this basis.Methods: We obtained RSV of lung cancer from Google Trends. We collected incidence and mortality rates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We further created a smoothed time series of RSV so as to eliminate the effects of irregular changes and obtain the long-term trend. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of original Google RSV data and disease metrics at the national and state level. We also performed a analysis of the decomposed RSV and disease metrics.Findings: Trend of lung cancer related internet searches is consistent with the trend of lung cancer incidence nationally. Ohio had the highest RSV. At the state level, the RSV is statistically significantly correlated with lung cancer incidence in 42 regions, with correlation ranging from 0.578 to 0.943. RSV is also statistically significantly correlated with mortality in 47 regions. Both the lung cancer incidence and mortality were correlated with decomposed RSV in 50 regions, except Vermont.Interpretation: Internet searches indeed reflect public awareness of cancer. Research on internet search behaviors could offer an innovative and timely approach to monitoring and estimating lung cancer incidence and mortality.Funding Statement: This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (#91746205).Declaration of Interests: The authors state: "None declared."Ethics Approval Statement: Not required.