• Am J Emerg Med · Mar 2022

    Laypeople's activity for seeking telephone number of EMS before and during the COVID-19 outbreak: An analysis of web search data.

    • Alexei Birkun.
    • Department of General Surgery, Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, Medical Academy named after S. I. Georgievsky of V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University; Lenin Blvd, 5/7, Simferopol 295051, Russian Federation. Electronic address: birkunalexei@gmail.com.
    • Am J Emerg Med. 2022 Mar 1; 53: 1-5.

    ObjectiveTo explore trends and patterns of laypeople's activity for seeking telephone number of emergency medical services (EMS) based on analysis of online search traffic, including changes of the search activity with onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, in five countries - the United States of America (USA), India, Brazil, the United Kingdom (UK) and Russia.MethodsGoogle Trends (GT) country-level data on weekly relative search volumes (RSV) for top queries to seek EMS number were examined for January 2018-October 2021, including a comparison of RSVs between pre-COVID-19 period (January 2018-October 2019) and COVID-19 period (January 2020-October 2021), and evaluation of temporal associations of RSVs with weekly numbers of new COVID-19 cases.ResultsThe countries demonstrated diverse patterns of the search activity with significantly different mean RSVs (the USA 1.76, India 10.20, Brazil 2.51, the UK 6.42, Russia 56.79; p < 0.001). For all countries excepting the USA mean RSVs of the COVID-19 period were significantly higher compared with the pre-COVID-19 ones (India +74%, Brazil +148%, the UK +22%, Russia +9%; p ≤ 0.034), and exhibited positive correlations with numbers of new COVID-19 cases, more pronounced for 2021 (India rS = 0.538, Brazil 0.307, the UK 0.434, Russia 0.639; p ≤ 0.045).ConclusionLaypeople's activity for seeking EMS telephone number greatly varies between countries. It clearly responds to the spread of COVID-19 and could be reflective of public need for obtaining emergency help. Further studies are required to establish the role of GT for conducting real-time surveillance of population demand for EMS.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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