Bento et al., "Evidence from internet search data shows information-seeking responses to news of local COVID-19 cases" (2020)

2020-05-04 → 2026-08-14

Ana I. Bento, Thuy Nguyen, Coady Wing, Felipe Lozano-Rojas, Yong-Yeol Ahn, and Kosali Simon, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117(21), 11220–11222 (2020)
Link | arXiv | PDF

@article{bento2020covidsearch,
    author = {Ana I. Bento and Thuy Nguyen and Coady Wing and Felipe Lozano-Rojas and Yong-Yeol Ahn and Kosali Simon},
    title = {Evidence from internet search data shows information-seeking responses to news of local COVID-19 cases},
    journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
    volume = {117},
    number = {21},
    pages = {11220--11222},
    doi = {10.1073/pnas.2005335117},
    archivePrefix = {arXiv},
    eprint = {2004.04591},
    primaryClass = {cs.SI},
    year = {2020},
}

Uses an event-study design across US states to measure search responses to the first announced local COVID-19 case. Searches for the disease, symptoms, and hand sanitizer rose immediately but returned toward baseline within one or two weeks; searches about policy and several personal-health responses did not rise immediately.

Information seeking, Search engine, COVID 19 pandemic

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