Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37113801›Full record

ArticleJMIR infodemiology

Exploring Google Searches for Out-of-Clinic Medication Abortion in the United States During 2020: Infodemiology Approach Using Multiple Samples.

Sylvia Guendelman, Elizabeth Pleasants, Coye Cheshire, Ashley Kong

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Article in JMIR infodemiology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. The Next Infodemic: Abortion Misinformation.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Sylvia Guendelman *Wallace Center for Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health School of Public Health University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA United States.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9690-3121
Elizabeth Pleasants *Wallace Center for Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health School of Public Health University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA United States.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8435-5682
Coye CheshireSchool of Information University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA United States.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7191-0026
Ashley KongComputing, Data Science, and Society Program University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA United States.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5375-2191

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: As access barriers to in-person abortion care increase due to legal restrictions and COVID-19-related disruptions, individuals may be turning to the internet for information and services on out-of-clinic medication abortions. Google searches allow us to explore timely population-level interest in this topic and assess its implications. Objective: We examined the extent to which people searched for out-of-clinic medication abortions in the United States in 2020 through 3 initial search terms: home abortion, self abortion, and buy abortion pill online. Methods: Using the Google Trends website, we estimated the relative search index (RSI)-a comparative measure of search popularity-for each initial search term and determined trends and its peak value between January 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021. RSI scores also helped to identify the 10 states where these searches were most popular. We developed a master list of top search queries for each of the initial search terms using the Google Trends application programming interface (API). We estimated the relative search volume (RSV)-the search volume of each query relative to other associated terms-for each of the top queries using the Google Health Trends API. We calculated average RSIs and RSVs from multiple samples to account for low-frequency data. Using the Custom Search API, we determined the top webpages presented to people searching for each of the initial search terms, contextualizing the information found when searching them on Google. Results: Searches for Conclusions: During the pandemic in the United States, there has been considerably more interest in home abortions than in minimally or nonclinically supported self-abortions. While our study was mainly descriptive, showing how infrequent abortion-related search data can be analyzed through multiple resampling, future studies should explore correlations between the keywords denoting interest in out-of-clinic abortion and abortion care measures and test models that allow for improved monitoring and surveillance of abortion concerns in our rapidly evolving policy context.

Indexed as

abortionabortion accessGoogle searchesinfodemiologyinternetonline information

Identifiers

PMID37113801
PMCPMC10014087

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

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.