Health Searches By US Metropolitan Area, 2005-2017

This is the Google Search interest data that powers the Visualisation Searching For Health. Google Trends data allows us to see what people are searching for at a very local level. This visualization tracks the top searches for common health issues in the United States, from Cancer to Diabetes, and compares them with the actual location of occurrences for those same health conditions to understand how search data reflects life for millions of Americans.

How does search interest for top health issues change over time? From 2004–2017, the data shows that search interest gradually increased over the past few years. Certain regions show a more significant increase in search interest than others. The increase in search activity is greatest in the Midwest and Northeast, while the changes are noticeably less dramatic in California, Texas, and Idaho. Are people generally becoming more aware of health conditions and health risks?

The search interest data was collected using the Google Trends API. The visualisation also brings in incidences of each condition so they can be compared. The health conditions were hand-selected from the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) which provides key indicators for local communities in the United States. The CHSI dataset includes more than 200 measures for each of the 3,141 United States counties. More information about the CHSI can be found on healthdata.gov.

Many striking similarities exist between searches and actual conditions—but the relationship between the Obesity and Diabetes maps stands out the most.
“There are many risk factors for type 2 diabetes such as age, race, pregnancy, stress, certain medications, genetics or family history, high cholesterol and obesity. However, the single best predictor of type 2 diabetes is overweight or obesity. Almost 90% of people living with type 2 diabetes are overweight or have obesity. People who are overweight or have obesity have added pressure on their body's ability to use insulin to properly control blood sugar levels, and are therefore more likely to develop diabetes.”
—Obesity Society via obesity.org