ArticleJMIR public health and surveillance2021
Telehealth Demand Trends During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Top 50 Most Affected Countries: Infodemiological Evaluation.
Article in JMIR public health and surveillance, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Covid-19 hotlines, helplines and call centers: a systematic review of characteristics, challenges and lessons learned.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Using telehealth consultations for healthcare provision to patients from non-Indigenous racial/ethnic minorities: a systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Pooled it
- The Impact and Applications of Social Media Platforms for Public Health Responses Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Literature Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- Comparison of Two Symptom Checkers (Ada and Symptoma) in the Emergency Department: Randomized, Crossover, Head-to-Head, Double-Blinded Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Trial
- Pain psychology service utilization and socioeconomic disparities following telehealth implementation.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- Comparing barriers to employee assistance program utilization in Canada and the United States using natural language processing and machine learning.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- Behavioral Nudges to Enhance Fidelity in Telehealth Sessions (BENEFITS): Protocol for Developing and Pilot Testing a Telehealth Tool to Improve Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Implementation.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- PROTOCOL: The Application of Information and Communication Technologies in Physical Activity Interventions for Breast Cancer: A Scoping Review Protocol.Campbell systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Expert consensus on implementing patient-reported outcomes in telehealth: findings from an international Delphi study.Journal of patient-reported outcomes · 2025Article
- Breast Cancer Screening Participation and Internet Search Activity in a Japanese Population: Decade-Long Time-Series Study.JMIR cancer · 2025Article
- Remote assessment of physical fitness via videoconferencing: a systematic review.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Barriers to widespread adoption of telehealth from physicians' perspective: A survey in southern Iran.PloS one · 2025Article
- Telehealth and people with disabilities in the United Kingdom: a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- A Comparison of the Convenience, Quality of Interaction, and Satisfaction of Virtual and In-Person Healthcare Consultations: A Nationwide Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Public and Research Interest in Telemedicine From 2017 to 2022: Infodemiology Study of Google Trends Data and Bibliometric Analysis of Scientific Literature.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Racial and Ethnic Differences in Hypertension-Related Telehealth and In-Person Outpatient Visits Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Medicaid Beneficiaries.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2024Article
- Communication in Telehealth: A State-of-the-Art Literature Review of Conversation-Analytic Research.Research on language and social interaction · 2024Article
- Adverse events associated with the delivery of telerehabilitation across rehabilitation populations: A scoping review.PloS one · 2024Article
- Telemedicine in Peru: origin, implementation, pandemic escalation, and prospects in the new normal.Oxford open digital health · 2024Article
- A comparison of the characteristics of adult medicine patients seeking telemedicine consultations versus in-person consultations in a Philippine public hospital.Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to urgent calls for the adoption of telehealth solutions. However, public interest and demand for telehealth during the pandemic remain unknown.
objectiveWe used an infodemiological approach to estimate the worldwide demand for telehealth services during COVID-19, focusing on the 50 most affected countries and comparing the demand for such services with the level of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure available.
methodsWe used Google Trends, the Baidu Index (China), and Yandex Keyword Statistics (Russia) to extract data on worldwide and individual countries' telehealth-related internet searches from January 1 to July 7, 2020, presented as relative search volumes (RSV; range 0-100). Daily COVID-19 cases and deaths were retrieved from the World Health Organization. Individual countries' ICT infrastructure profiles were retrieved from the World Economic Forum Report.
resultsAcross the 50 countries, the mean RSV was 18.5 (SD 23.2), and the mean ICT index was 62.1 (SD 15.0). An overall spike in worldwide telehealth-related RSVs was observed from March 11, 2020 (RSV peaked to 76.0), which then tailed off in June-July 2020 (mean RSV for the period was 25.8), but remained higher than pre-March RSVs (mean 7.29). By country, 42 (84%) manifested increased RSVs over the evaluation period, with the highest observed in Canada (RSV=100) and the United States (RSV=96). When evaluating associations between RSV and the ICT index, both the United States and Canada demonstrated high RSVs and ICT scores (≥70.3). In contrast, European countries had relatively lower RSVs (range 3.4-19.5) despite high ICT index scores (mean 70.3). Several Latin American (Brazil, Chile, Colombia) and South Asian (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan) countries demonstrated relatively higher RSVs (range 13.8-73.3) but low ICT index scores (mean 44.6), indicating that the telehealth demand outstrips the current ICT infrastructure.
conclusionsThere is generally increased interest and demand for telehealth services across the 50 countries most affected by COVID-19, highlighting the need to scale up telehealth capabilities, during and beyond the pandemic.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.