For example, models forecasting COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths substantially aided the public health response to the pandemic 5. The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the value of real-time insights into population health and wellbeing. Syndromic surveillance systems aim to provide near real-time assessment of influenza-like illness, gastrointestinal or respiratory symptoms, or other specific signs or symptoms of physical health 1, 2, 3, 4. These results suggest aggregated data on Internet searches can provide timely and continuous insights into population mental health and complement other existing tools in this domain.
Searches for suicidal ideation did not correlate with external variables. Results were similar when considering instead searches for anxiety. Searches related to depression were correlated with the proportion of individuals reporting receiving therapy (r = 0.73), taking medication (r = 0.62) and having unmet mental healthcare needs (r = 0.57) on US Census Household Pulse Survey and modestly correlated with rates of ED visits for mental health conditions. Search queries related to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation decreased sharply around March 2020, returning to pre-pandemic levels by summer 2020. We correlated these trends with (1) emergency department (ED) visits for mental health problems and suicide attempts, and (2) surveys of self-reported symptoms of anxiety, depression, and mental health care use. We examined publicly available, anonymized, aggregated data on weekly trends in Google searches related to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation from 2018 to 2020 in the US. The absence of continuous, real-time mental health assessment has made it challenging to quantify the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on population mental health.
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