Use of low-cost online tools to estimate the public's interest in the changing conditions of their existence under the conditions during COVID-19, as a model for the emergency information assessment

Roman Tandlich; Asante Msimang; Viola Tamášová

doi:10.5055/jem.0804

Use of low-cost online tools to estimate the public's interest in the changing conditions of their existence under the conditions during COVID-19, as a model for the emergency information assessment

J Emerg Manag. 2023;21(8):21-26. doi: 10.5055/jem.0804.

Authors

Roman Tandlich¹, Asante Msimang², Viola Tamášová³

Affiliations

¹ Disaster Management and Ethics, Research Group (DMERG), Faculty of Pharmacy, Rhodes, University, Grahamstown, South Africa; DTI University, Dubnica nad Váhom, Slovakia.
² Disaster Management and Ethics Research Group, (DMERG), Faculty of Pharmacy, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
³ DTI University, Dubnica nad Váhom, Slovakia.

PMID: 37878381
DOI: 10.5055/jem.0804

Abstract

Online tools such as Google Trends and search volume trackers provide potential low-cost methods to evaluate the interest of the public in the current topics once a disaster strikes. A low-cost plugin is available commercially to extract the public interest data from Google and it is tested in this letter to the editor. The plugin was used to assess the time trends in the South African public's interest in working from home which became a relevant topic during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Results of the data extraction and analysis are presented and potential applications in emergency management are proposed.