A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found evidence to suggest that acute anxiety reached an all-time high in the United States following the declaration of COVID-19 as a national emergency. This evidence came from an unusual source of data — Google searches.
There has been extensive concern that anxiety levels have risen around the world due to fears and uncertainty regarding the coronavirus. Study authors John W. Ayers and associates set out to search for empirical evidence for this increased anxiety. Since nationwide surveys and the monitoring of health records are time-consuming methods that tend to neglect large portions of the population, Ayers and team turned instead to internet search data.
“Using Google Trends (https://trends.google.com/trends) we monitored the daily fraction of all internet searches . . . that included the terms anxiety or panic in combination with attack (including panic attack, signs of anxiety attack, anxiety attack symptoms) that originated from the US from January 1, 2004, through May 4, 2020,” the researchers describe.
Next, taking into account the historical trend for these search terms, they compared the volume of searches related to anxiety attacks that took place after March 13, 2020 — the day that President Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency — with the expected volume of searches had the pandemic not transpired.
Remarkably, the researchers found that during the 58 days between Trump’s announcement and May 9th, 2020, searches related to panic attacks rose by a cumulative 11%. This increase represented around 375,000 more searches than expected and a total of 3.4 million queries — a record high.
The most dramatic spike took place on March 28, 2020, when there were 52% more searches related to panic attacks than expected. Overall, searches were most elevated between March 16 to April 14, 2020. As the researchers say, this period of time coincides with events that were happening in the US related to the pandemic. On March 16, national social distancing measures were first implemented. On March 26, the US usurped China for the highest number of reported cases, and on April 11, the US reached a greater number of COVID-19-related deaths than Italy.
Interestingly, by April 15, 2020, search volumes had descended to normal levels and remained within expected levels at all future dates. The researchers discuss this return to pre-pandemic search volumes.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic internet searches indicative of acute anxiety spiked early during the pandemic, but have since returned to typical levels, perhaps because Americans have become more resilient to the societal fallout from COVID-19 or because they had already received whatever benefit they could from searching the internet,” Ayers and team say.
The researchers further highlight that this type of internet search monitoring should be ongoing, allowing for continual surveillance into the mental health of the population as the pandemic evolves.
As the study’s authors suggest, one strategy to address the rising anxiety in the population is for service providers like Google to take steps to promote mental health resources, particularly resources supporting those dealing with acute anxiety. Links to these resources, such as distress hotlines, could be placed at the top of the displayed search results for anxiety-related queries.
The study, “Internet Searches for Acute Anxiety During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic”, was authored by John W. Ayers, Eric C. Leas, Derek C. Johnson, Adam Poliak, Benjamin M. Althouse, Mark Dredze, and Alicia L. Nobles.
