Infodemiological data concerning silicosis in the USA in the period 2004-2010 correlating with real-world statistical data

Nicola Luigi Bragazzi; Guglielmo Dini; Alessandra Toletone; Francesco Brigo; Paolo Durando

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2016.11.021

Infodemiological data concerning silicosis in the USA in the period 2004-2010 correlating with real-world statistical data

Data Brief. 2016 Nov 13:10:457-464. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2016.11.021. eCollection 2017 Feb.

Authors

Nicola Luigi Bragazzi¹, Guglielmo Dini², Alessandra Toletone³, Francesco Brigo⁴, Paolo Durando⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health, Department of Health Sciences (DISSAL), University of Genoa, Via Antonio Pastore 1, Genoa 16132, Italy.
² Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa and Occupational Medicine Unit, I.R.C.C.S. University Hospital San Martino - IST National Institute for Cancer Research, Genoa, Italy.
³ Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
⁴ Department of Neurology, Franz Tappeiner Hospital, Merano, Italy; Department of Neurological, Biomedical, and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Italy.
⁵ Department of Health Sciences, Postgraduate School in Occupational Medicine, University of Genoa and Occupational Medicine Unit, I.R.C.C.S. University Hospital San Martino - IST National Institute for Cancer Research, Genoa, Italy; Unità operativa Medicina del lavoro, IRCCS AOU San Martino-IST, Genoa, Italy.

Abstract

This article reports data concerning silicosis-related web-activities using Google Trends (GT) capturing the Internet behavior in the USA for the period 2004-2010. GT-generated data were then compared with the most recent available epidemiological data of silicosis mortality obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the same study period. Statistically significant correlations with epidemiological data of silicosis (r=0.805, p-value <0.05) and other related web searches were found. The temporal trend well correlated with the epidemiological data, as well as the geospatial distribution of the web-activities with the geographic epidemiology of silicosis.

Keywords: Infodemiology and infoveillance; Internet; Occupational medicine and hygiene; Web 2.0; Work-related diseases.