https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5176-0390
-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Jonathan D Tijerina, Shane D Morrison, Ian T Nolan, Matthew J Parham, Rahim Nazerali, Google Trends Analyses in Plastic Surgery At Large, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, Volume 40, Issue 6, June 2020, Pages NP405–NP406, https://doi.org/10.1093/asj/sjaa025
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
We thank the author for his insightful comments1 on our article, “Predicting Public Interest in Nonsurgical Cosmetic Procedures Using Google Trends,” 2 and the powerful utility of internet search traffic analysis in medical care and aesthetic plastic surgery, specifically. There have been many recent studies evaluating the utilization of Google Trends (GT) data for predicting public interest and surgical demands for various plastic surgery procedures, and in response to high-profile media events.3-6 As mentioned by Dr Youn, the primary focus of most plastic surgery practices is surgical in nature, and as such, further understanding of the correlations existing between GT data and surgical volumes offers a substantial amount of useful information.
Several recent studies in plastics literature have demonstrated the utility of GT for tracking public interest in various plastic surgery procedures, including breast-related surgeries, cosmetic procedures involving the face and body, and gender-affirming surgery.3-8 Both temporal and geographic trends within the United States and worldwide were evaluated regarding these procedures utilizing the GT tool as well as the effects of high-profile media events involving plastic surgery. Previous studies by Tijerina et al detected similar trends in significant positive correlations between GT search term traffic and surgical volumes of corresponding plastic surgeries within the United States. However, not all related terms demonstrated a statistically significant positive correlation with their corresponding surgeries, and some demonstrated negative trends. As such, further exploration of these relationships is warranted.
