Hidden internet-based measure of discrimination and mental health of Black people

Dual pandemics? Assessing associations between area racism, COVID-19 case rates, and mental health among U.S. adults

Mental health worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among racially minoritized adults. Population-level racial attitudes, or area racism, may be associated with mental health, particularly during this historical moment, but this possibility has not been tested in prior research. In the present study, we use nationally representative data from the Household Pulse Survey (April-October 2020) to document associations between area racism and depression/anxiety in the United States among non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic Asian, Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, and other racial/ethnic minority adults. We further consider the national COVID-19 case rate to examine an additional macro-level stressor. Findings indicate that area racism was positively associated with depression and/or anxiety for Black, Hispanic, White, and other racial/ethnic minority adults. Moreover, COVID-19 cases posed an additional, independent mental health threat for most groups. This study points to area racism as a macro-level stressor and an antecedent of mental health for racially diverse groups of Americans.

The rise of infodemiology and infoveillance during COVID-19 crisis

We noticed an increase in the relative number of published papers on topics such as infoveillance, infodemiology and Google Trends. Collected PubMed data are from the period of January 2020 to March 2021 and were searched with the use of five keywords: infoveillance, infodemiology, Google Trends, diabetes and in silico. We compared an increase in the number of papers from PubMed with search interest expressed in Google Trends. Collected Google Trends data is from the same period, covering fifteen months starting January 2020 and were searched with the use of three search topics: coronavirus, lockdown and social distancing. The geographic setting for search engine users was worldwide. We propose a hypothesis that after increased interest in searches during the pandemic's initial months came an increased number of published papers on topics such as infoveillance, infodemiology and Google Trends.

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Google Trends data underline the importance and duration of the COVID-19 effects.

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PubMed data reveal an increase in the number of papers in infoveillance, infodemiology and Google Trends

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Current restrictions such as lockdown and social distancing are reflected in the number of internet searches