Universität zu Köln

Barros, Joana M., Melia, Ruth ORCID: 0000-0002-1152-5510, Francis, Kady, Bogue, John ORCID: 0000-0002-7070-1561, O'Sullivan, Mary ORCID: 0000-0003-0832-6921, Young, Karen, Bernert, Rebecca A., Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich and Duggan, Jim ORCID: 0000-0002-7507-8617 (2019). The Validity of Google Trends Search Volumes for Behavioral Forecasting of National Suicide Rates in Ireland. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 16 (17). BASEL: MDPI. ISSN 1660-4601

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Abstract

Annual suicide figures are critical in identifying trends and guiding research, yet challenges arising from significant lags in reporting can delay and complicate real-time interventions. In this paper, we utilized Google Trends search volumes for behavioral forecasting of national suicide rates in Ireland between 2004 and 2015. Official suicide rates are recorded by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland. While similar investigations using Google trends data have been carried out in other jurisdictions (e.g., United Kingdom, United Stated of America), such research had not yet been completed in Ireland. We compiled a collection of suicide- and depression-related search terms suggested by Google Trends and manually sourced from the literature. Monthly search rate terms at different lags were compared with suicide occurrences to determine the degree of correlation. Following two approaches based on vector autoregression and neural network autoregression, we achieved mean absolute error values between 4.14 and 9.61 when incorporating search query data, with the highest performance for the neural network approach. The application of this process to United Kingdom suicide and search query data showed similar results, supporting the benefit of Google Trends, neural network approach, and the applied search terms to forecast suicide risk increase. Overall, the combination of societal data and online behavior provide a good indication of societal risks; building on past research, our improvements led to robust models integrating search query and unemployment data for suicide risk forecasting in Ireland.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Barros, Joana M. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Melia, Ruth UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-1152-5510 UNSPECIFIED Francis, Kady UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Bogue, John UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-7070-1561 UNSPECIFIED O'Sullivan, Mary UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-0832-6921 UNSPECIFIED Young, Karen UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Bernert, Rebecca A. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Duggan, Jim UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-7507-8617 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-142507
DOI:	10.3390/ijerph16173201
Journal or Publication Title:	Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health
Volume:	16
Number:	17
Date:	2019
Publisher:	MDPI
Place of Publication:	BASEL
ISSN:	1660-4601
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language TIME-SERIES; MENTAL-HEALTH; INTERNET; UNEMPLOYMENT; INFORMATION; PACKAGE; MODELS; IMPACT; MEDIA; DEATH Multiple languages Environmental Sciences; Public, Environmental & Occupational Health Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/14250