Table 2.
Spearman Rank Correlation (95% CI) for Weekly UCSF Encounters With Eye Disease Diagnoses vs Disease-Related Google Searches and Tweetsa
| Characteristic | Nonallergic Conjunctivitis Diagnoses |
Allergic Conjunctivitis Diagnoses |
Glaucoma Diagnoses |
Influenza Diagnoses |
Google USA Search for Pink Eye |
Google Australia Search for Conjunctivitis |
Google USA Search for Eye Allergy |
Google USA Search for Flu |
Google USA Search for Eye Drops |
Twitter USA Posts About Pink Eye |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nonallergic conjunctivitis diagnoses | 1 | b | b | b | b | b | b | b | b | b |
| Allergic conjunctivitis diagnoses | 0.21 (−0.02 to 0.42) | 1 | b | b | b | b | b | b | b | b |
| Glaucoma diagnoses | −0.02 (−0.24 to 0.22) | 0.24 (0.02 to 0.44) | 1 | b | b | b | b | b | b | b |
| Influenza diagnoses | 0.33 (0.12 to 0.49) b | −0.30 (−0.49 to −0.08)c | −0.04 (−0.25 to 0.18) | 1 | b | b | b | b | b | b |
| Google USA search for pink eye | 0.68 (0.52 to 0.78)c | 0 (−0.25 to 0.23) | −0.32 (−0.51 to −0.09)c | 0.47 (0.25 to 0.66)c | 1 | b | b | b | b | b |
| Google Australia search for conjunctivitis | −0.66 (−0.77 to −0.50)c | −0.07 (−0.28 to 0.16) | 0.13 (−0.12 to 0.36) | −0.51 (−0.65 to −0.32)c | −0.84 (−0.88 to −0.75)c | 1 | b | b | b | b |
| Google USA search for eye allergy | 0.13 (−0.06 to 0.32) | 0.44 (0.24 to 0.60)c | 0.02 (−0.22 to 0.26) | −0.43 (−0.60 to −0.22)c | 0.05 (−0.19 to 0.28) | 0.06 (−0.16 to 0.29) | 1 | b | b | b |
| Google USA search for flu | −0.15 (−0.36 to 0.05) | −0.42 (−0.59 to −0.22)c | −0.08 (−0.29 to 0.15) | 0.65 (0.47 to 0.77)c | 0.08 (−0.16 to 0.30) | −0.19 (−0.39 to 0.05) −0.59 | (−0.69 to −0.45)c | 1 | b | b |
| Google USA search for eye drops | 0.48 (0.30 to 0.62)c | 0.47 (0.27 to 0.62)c | 0.04 (−0.21 to 0.27) | −0.12 (−0.34 to 0.10) | 0.42 (0.20 to 0.60)c | −0.42 (−0.57 to −0.22)c | 0.60 (0.42 to 0.74)c | −0.52 (−0.64 to −0.35)c | 1 | b |
| Twitter USA posts about pink eye | 0.38 (0.16 to 0.56)c | 0.09 (−0.14 to 0.31) | −0.39 (−0.56 to −0.20)c | 0.14 (−0.12 to 0.38) | 0.55 (0.33 to 0.70)c | −0.37 (−0.59 to −0.12)c | 0.08 (−0.15 to 0.31) | 0.05 (−0.18 to 0.27) | 0.11 (−0.16 to 0.35) | 1 |
a
Weekly total clinical encounters at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for nonallergic conjunctivitis, allergic conjunctivitis, glaucoma, and influenza were compared with equivalent weekly data on keywords obtained from Google Trends and Twitter using the Spearman rank correlation.
b
The correlation matrix is symmetric, but entries to the right are suppressed for clarity.
c
P < .001.