Insights and Strategies to Revive Brachytherapy Using Social Media: A Google Trends Analysis

Abstract

Introduction: The utilization and public awareness of brachytherapy are both declining. Social media has an increasing presence in health promotions. As regards cancer care, social media has been successfully used as a platform for information dissemination, psychosocial support, and patient engagement and empowerment.

Methods and materials: Using Google Trends (Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA), we analyzed the impacts on the public interest of three brachytherapy-related social media campaigns/publicity events and compared and contrasted them with three other campaigns/publicity events. We used descriptive statistics (mean ± standard deviation (SD)) to describe the search results, independent t-tests to compare means before and after campaigns/announcements for short-term effects, and one-way ANOVA (or Kruskal-Wallis test when appropriate) to compare mean values across distinct time periods for long-term effects.

Results: We identified three major types of social media campaigns/events: those that have a short-term impact but little long-term impact, those that have both short-term and long-term impacts, and those with little short-term or long-term impact. We examined campaigns with significant and lasting impacts and noticed that they tend to be celebrity-related/celebrity-endorsed, focused on sharing personal experiences, and occur with regular frequency.

Conclusions: To increase public awareness of brachytherapy, the American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) can consider tie-ins with events and people with high search traffic (such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month), having celebrities/influencers who were treated with brachytherapy to provide testimonials, encouraging patient engagement and sharing of their experiences with brachytherapy on social media, and setting up recurring brachytherapy publicity events.

Keywords: brachytherapy; cancer; google trends; public health; social media.

Figure 1. Line graphs of search volume indices shortly before and after each of the following events: a) ABS, b) first “ThisIsBrachytherapy” Twitter campaign, c) second “ThisIsBrachytherapy” Twitter campaign, d) ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge,” e) Ben Stiller announced prostate cancer diagnosis, and f) Angelina Jolie announced prophylactic double mastectomy surgery. Red arrows represent the time of occurrence of each event.

Figure 2. Line graphs of search volume indices two months before and eight months after each of the following events: a) ABS, b) first “ThisIsBrachytherapy” Twitter campaign, c) second “ThisIsBrachytherapy” Twitter campaign, d) ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge,” e) Ben Stiller announced prostate cancer diagnosis, and f) Angelina Jolie announced prophylactic double mastectomy surgery. Red arrows represent the time of occurrence of each event.

Figure 3. Stacked line graph showing a recurrent pattern of increase in the search frequency of “ALS” in August of every year since 2014, corresponding to the annual “Ice Bucket Challenge” raising awareness for ALS.