ArticleJMIR infodemiology
The Impact of COVID-19 on Conspiracy Hypotheses and Risk Perception in Italy: Infodemiological Survey Study Using Google Trends.
Article in JMIR infodemiology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Impact of Three Communication Channels on the Dissemination of a Serious Game Designed to Enhance COVID-19 Prevention.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society.PloS one · 2024Article
- Spreading of misinformation on mass media and digital platforms regarding vaccines. A systematic scoping review on stakeholders, policymakers, and sentiments/behavior of Italian consumers.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2023Article
- Mining Trends of COVID-19 Vaccine Beliefs on Twitter With Lexical Embeddings: Longitudinal Observational Study.JMIR infodemiology · 2023Article
- Review
- A Google Trends Approach to Identify Distinct Diurnal and Day-of-Week Web-Based Search Patterns Related to Conjunctivitis and Other Common Eye Conditions: Infodemiology Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Observational
- Fake news: Why do we believe it?Joint bone spine · 2022Article
- Epidemic risk perceptions in Italy and Sweden driven by authority responses to COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Impact of population mixing between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations on infectious disease dynamics: implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2022Article
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Mortality in Italy: Retrospective Analysis of Epidemiological Trends.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2022Article
- Why Was the Perception of Human Rights Respect and Care Satisfaction So High in Users of Italian Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic?Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- A new infodemiological approach through Google Trends: longitudinal analysis of COVID-19 scientific and infodemic names in Italy.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Article
- Conspiracy beliefs, regulatory self-efficacy and compliance with COVID-19 health-related behaviors: The mediating role of moral disengagement.Current research in ecological and social psychology · 2022Article
- Analyzing Risk Communication, Trust, Risk Perception, Negative Emotions, and Behavioral Coping Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China Using a Structural Equation Model.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Second Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic in Argentinian Population: Vaccination Is Associated With a Decrease in Depressive Symptoms.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Identifying the determinants of non-injection of covid-19 vaccine: A qualitative study in Urmia, Iran.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative longitudinal study investigating the first and second wave in Italy.Heliyon · 2021Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCOVID-19 has caused the worst international crisis since World War II. Italy was one of the countries most affected by both the pandemic and the related infodemic. The success of anti-COVID-19 strategies and future public health policies in Italy cannot separate itself from the containment of fake news and the divulgation of correct information.
objectiveThe aim of this paper was to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on web interest in conspiracy hypotheses and risk perception of Italian web users.
methodsGoogle Trends was used to monitor users' web interest in specific topics, such as conspiracy hypotheses, vaccine side effects, and pollution and climate change. The keywords adopted to represent these topics were mined from Bufale.net-an Italian website specializing in detecting online hoaxes-and Google Trends suggestions (ie, related topics and related queries). Relative search volumes (RSVs) of the time-lapse periods of 2016-2020 (pre-COVID-19) and 2020-2021 (post-COVID-19) were compared through percentage difference (∆
resultsThe COVID-19 pandemic drastically increased Italian netizens' interest in conspiracies (∆
conclusionsCOVID-19 has given a significant boost to web interest in conspiracy hypotheses and has made it more uniform across regions in Italy. The pandemic accelerated an already-growing trend in users' interest toward some fake news sources, including the 500,000-subscriber YouTube channel ByoBlu, which was removed from the platform by YouTube for disinformation in March 2021. The risk perception related to COVID-19 vaccines has been so distorted that vaccine side effect-related queries outweighed those relating to pollution and climate change, which are much more urgent issues. Moreover, a large amount of fake news has circulated about COVID-19 vaccines, remedies, and origin. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the Italian authorities implement more effective infoveillance systems, and that communication by the mass media be less sensationalistic and more consistent with the available scientific evidence. In this context, Google Trends can be used to monitor users' response to specific infodemiological countermeasures. Further research is needed to understand the psychological mechanisms that regulate risk perception.
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Registered trials
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.