2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Winner ðŸ†: Shane Tinsley (public health)

Faculty mentor: Mohit Butaney, Ali A. Dabaja, Naveen Kachroo

Abstract

Introduction: Disease-specific health awareness (HA) campaigns have rapidly developed as an important avenue to improve patient education and ideally outcomes. Our study objective was to understand the impact of urological HA months on engaging public search interests in the United States.

Methods: We utilized Google Trends to examine public health interest in urologic conditions during monthly awareness campaigns over a 17-year period (2004-2021). Relative Search Volume (RSV) during the annual HA campaign months relative to non-health awareness (NHA) campaign months was calculated. Differences between HA-RSV and NHA-RSV months were compared using t-test.

Results: Although small increases in public interest were noted for certain diseases (prostate cancer in November, testicular cancer in April and erectile dysfunction), there was interestingly a comparative decrease in RSV for other diseases (bladder cancer, prostate cancer in September, testicular cancer in November, kidney cancer, benign prostate hyperplasia and male infertility) in their respective HA months; however, none of these differences were statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Conclusion: Our study did not find a significant difference in public interest of any urological diseases during their respective HA campaign months. This highlights the critical need for further research to investigate potential improvements in campaign methodology during dedicated HA months to better achieve their goals of increased public health engagement.

Poster pitch

Poster

Rate this presentation

↠Return to symposium