Figure Pancreatic Cancer Announcements on Media and Search Query Outcomes

Background Announcements of cancer diagnoses from public figures may stimulate cancer information seeking and media coverage about cancer. This study used digital surveillance to quantify the effects of pancreatic cancer public fig-ure announcements on online cancer information seeking and cancer media coverage. Methods We compiled a list of public figures (N = 25) who had been diagnosed with or had died from pancreatic cancer between 2006 and 2011. We specified interrupted time series models using data from Google Trends to examine search query shifts for pancreatic cancer and other cancers. Weekly media coverage archived on Google News were also analyzed. Results Most public figures ’ pancreatic cancer announcements corresponded with no appreciable change in pancreatic cancer search queries or media coverage. In contrast, Patrick Swayze’s diagnosis was associated with a 285% (95 % confidence interval [CI]: 212 to 360) increase in pancreatic cancer search queries, though it was only weakly associated with increases in pancreatic cancer media coverage. Steve Jobs’s death was associated with a 197