LAUSR

Kidney disease has a major effect on global health as a direct cause of global morbidity. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is largely preventable and treatable. Thus, it deserves greater attention in global health policy decision making (1). The increasing economic and social burdens have spurred additional research interest in epidemiology, geographic prevalence, and cost-effectiveness strategies in intervention and prevention. Global public interest in seeking information about CKD may provide important clues, such as screening and awareness. In recent years, internet data have integrated into health informatics, and has been recognized as a valuable tool for estimating health-related needs. By generating big data according to specified keywords, Google trends (GT) is one of the most popular and efficient way in examining human behavior (2, 3). To our knowledge there have been no studies that examined whether search queries in GT search volume could direct educational campaigns, monitor and address trends in real-time for CKD. To explore internet search trends data as a unique resource for monitoring online health information-seeking behavior, this study aims to investigate the global public interests in seeking information of CKD using GT.