ArticleTobacco prevention & cessation2019
Did the introduction of pictorial health warnings increase information seeking for smoking cessation?: Time-series analysis of Google Trends data in six countries.
Article in Tobacco prevention & cessation, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Google Trends Analysis of Interest in Smoking Cessation, Treatment Options, and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Following Tax Increase and Introduction of Pictorial Health Warnings in Germany.Tobacco use insights · 2025Article
- Google Trends Assessment of Keywords Related to Smoking and Smoking Cessation During the COVID-19 Pandemic in 4 European Countries: Retrospective Analysis.Online journal of public health informatics · 2024Article
- What does Google Trends reveal about the proportion of waterpipe users in the Brazilian population?Epidemiologia e servicos de saude : revista do Sistema Unico de Saude do Brasil · 2023Article
- A Qualitative Study of Pictorial Health Warnings on Malaysian Cigarette Packs: How Do the Adults Understand Them?Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionPictorial health warnings (PHW) can influence smoking cessation rates and precursors thereof. However, both the magnitude and duration of their impact, in national populations, remain uncertain because of limitations of the available data. In this study we used Google Trends data from six European countries to evaluate whether the implementation of PHW was followed by a short-term increase in online searches on smoking cessation.
methodsWe applied an interrupted time-series design using ARIMA models. We used weekly or monthly data on the relative search volume (RSV) for search terms about smoking cessation. First, RSV trends were seasonally adjusted and adjusted for autocorrelation. Next, regression models were fitted that included terms for the potential effect of PHW in month 1, months 2-3, and months 4-6 after implementation.
resultsOur findings for France and the United Kingdom were partly in line with our initial expectations. In France, a 4% increase (95% CI: -2% - 11%) occurred in the first month after implementation, but not later. In the UK, a 3% increase (95% CI: 1% - 6%) in 'quit smoking' searches occurred in months 2-3. No increases were observed for any other periods for France, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark or Switzerland.
conclusionsWe found no consistent support that the implementation of PHW was associated with increased internet searches for smoking cessation. Further studies are needed to assess and understand the magnitude and duration of population-wide impacts of PHW.
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