Can Wikipedia Page-View Volumes Be Utilized to Predict Cancer Incidence in the United States?
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Abstract
Introduction: Recent data suggest that patients look online for information about cancer at least as often, and maybe even more often, than they consult with a physician. Wikipedia has become the number one source of online health information in the United States and Great Britain. Despite being a primary source of health information, relatively little is understood about how often Wikipedia is used for genitourinary cancers and if there is a correlation between Wikipedia page views and cancer incidence.
Methods: The Wikipedia pages for prostate, bladder, kidney, testicular and penile cancers are, on average, one of the top 3 non-commercial results from searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo. We evaluated webpage logs of Wikipedia for the common genitourinary cancers with regard to total views during a one-year period (2012). We compared this to cancer incidence reported by the American Cancer Society.
Results: There were nearly 3 million page views of these 5 cancer Wikipedia pages in one year. Average page view per incident cancer was 7.5. Correlation between cancer incidence and the corresponding Wikipedia page-view was significant R-square 0.79, p = 0.04. Testicular cancer, which occurs in younger men, median age of incidence is 33, was associated with much higher web-views/incident case 79. When testicular cancer was removed from the analysis, the correlation coefficient was nearly perfect, R-square 0.996, p= 0.002.
Conclusion: There is a proportional relationship between actual cancer incidence and number of web-views was nearly perfect for all cancers where median age of incidence is 60 or greater. Testicular cancer was associated with much higher web-views/incident case per yer (79) than the other cancers likely due to a higher internet usership among patients with testicular cancer. Wikipedia web views could potentially be used as a proxy for incidence of genitourinary cancers in the US.
Methods: The Wikipedia pages for prostate, bladder, kidney, testicular and penile cancers are, on average, one of the top 3 non-commercial results from searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo. We evaluated webpage logs of Wikipedia for the common genitourinary cancers with regard to total views during a one-year period (2012). We compared this to cancer incidence reported by the American Cancer Society.
Results: There were nearly 3 million page views of these 5 cancer Wikipedia pages in one year. Average page view per incident cancer was 7.5. Correlation between cancer incidence and the corresponding Wikipedia page-view was significant R-square 0.79, p = 0.04. Testicular cancer, which occurs in younger men, median age of incidence is 33, was associated with much higher web-views/incident case 79. When testicular cancer was removed from the analysis, the correlation coefficient was nearly perfect, R-square 0.996, p= 0.002.
Conclusion: There is a proportional relationship between actual cancer incidence and number of web-views was nearly perfect for all cancers where median age of incidence is 60 or greater. Testicular cancer was associated with much higher web-views/incident case per yer (79) than the other cancers likely due to a higher internet usership among patients with testicular cancer. Wikipedia web views could potentially be used as a proxy for incidence of genitourinary cancers in the US.
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