E-cigarettes have gained growing visibility in recent years. However, there lacks a panoramic image of e-cigarette concerns, particularly in low-income countries, such as China. Studying the public concern at a macro level may help reveal the development of the e-cigarette market, and potential health burden of a province as a whole, which is crucial for the policy regulation of the e-cigarette market, and for the allocation of medical resources in the future. In this research, we attempt to provide the first representative portrait of e-cigarette concerns by using the index of e-cigarette search (ICS), which is constructed by online query of e-cigarette-related words/phrases of 31 provinces spanning from 2011 to 2014 in Baidu, the most popular search engine in China. E-cigarette concerns in all Chinese provinces increased over the time span. Our results from fixed-effects models further show that ICS is positively associated with the number of beds in medical institutions and road density of the province, but negatively associated with the proportion of urban population. In sum, provincial health care, infrastructure and urbanization are pivotal in shaping e-cigarette concerns at the provincial level in China.
Keywords: Baidu index; China; e-cigarettes; fixed-effects model; public concern.