Public Information Needs and Interest in Specific Food and Drug Allergy Disorders in Germany (2022–2024): Google Search Engine Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: The prevalence of food and drug allergies has been steadily increasing in Germany. These conditions not only impair the quality of life of those affected but also place an additional burden on the health care system. At the same time, an increasing number of people are using the internet and other digital sources to seek health-related information. Objective: This study aimed to use the Google Ads Keyword Planner to identify the information needs and knowledge gaps of the internet-using population in Germany and to provide a foundation for future prevention and educational strategies regarding food and drug allergies. Methods: Relevant keywords related to selected food and drug allergies were extracted using the Google Ads Keyword Planner and analyzed according to predefined criteria. The observation period was from September 2022 to October 2024. Results: A total of 633 keywords related to specific types of food and drug allergies were identified, generating a combined search volume of 3,649,390 queries. The most frequently searched terms nationwide were "histamine allergy" (368,980/3,649,390, 10.1%), "penicillin allergy" (266,410/3,649,390, 7.3%), and "nut allergy" (103,850/3,649,390, 2.8%). Although "histamine allergy" was the most frequently searched term in this analysis, most searches for "histamine allergy" likely referred to an intolerance rather than a true immunoglobulin E-mediated allergy. Seasonal patterns were also observed, with increased searches for the categories "nut" and "penicillin" in the winter months and for "histamine" in the spring months. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the potential of Google search query data analysis in a medical context and, in particular, underscores its relevance for understanding the public interest in food and drug allergies in Germany. The findings highlight the need for improved, easily accessible educational resources and for implementing allergy-specific, socially relevant health campaigns to address the unmet information needs of the population living in Germany regarding food and drug allergies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.016 | 0.017 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".