If you've never Googled a healthcare service, you may want to consider your life — or your community — fairly comfortable.
That's what some findings from the The New York Times suggest, anyhow. Back in June, the newspaper identified American counties where life is "hardest." This categorization is based on six data points: education (or percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity. The 10 lowest-ranking counties in the country include six in the Appalachian Mountains, along with four others in various parts of the rural South. On the other hand, six of the top 10 counties in the United States are in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
The variation between these "hard" counties and those deemed relatively "easy" is staggering. Median household income in some counties is five times higher than median income in others, and median life expectancy can vary up to a decade. (Here's the composite ranking and commentary, with an infographic that is pleasingly easy to navigate, too.)
This week, the Times team used Google Correlate to see how web search trends differ among counties. The analysis used a decade's worth of Web search data to pin down which terms are popular in places where life is easier versus those where life is more difficult. The analysis canceled out those terms that are popular throughout America, like "Super Bowl" or "Oprah Winfrey," and focused on subjects that were relatively common Web searches in one county but not common in another.
So what'd they find? Well, people in the easy-breezy parts of the country sure love their cameras, or searching them on the Web at least ("if you don't recognize some terms on here, they are probably digital cameras," the Times noted). Maybe an easy life is more photogenic. Some other common searches include ipad applications, dollar conversion and baby bjorn. Best cupcake also shows up near the middle of the list.
Many of the terms center around technology, photography, travel and products (oven review or ipod remote). Oddly, the Ben Stiller classic "Zoolander" comes up twice out of 90 times. Healthcare terms are noticeably absent.
That is in stark contrast to search terms correlated with the harder parts of the country, several of which are related to healthcare.
The top five searches where life is the hardest include:
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- free diabetic
- antichrist
- 38 revolver
- ways to lower blood pressure
- diabetic diet
Three of the top five relate to healthcare. Overall, roughly 30 of the 90 terms in "hard" areas relate to medical conditions, treatments and diets. Several are what physicians would consider basic health questions, like what is normal blood sugar. There are also searches for the symptoms of lupus, natural ways to lower blood pressure, sinus cavities and low- calorie or carbohydrate diets. Some are more disturbing than others, such as free medicine.
The big takeaway from the Times analysis is the difference in thoughts that occupy advantaged and disadvantaged populations. But if you work in healthcare, and if your organization is looking to help improve the health of your surrounding population, this analysis is a detailed, painful reminder of healthcare's haves and have-nots.
These search results don't tell us everything, but they tell us a whole lot, and in a rugged way. People who live in hard areas, as defined by socioeconomic and health outcomes, are concerned about their health. I'm sure people in easy areas are too, but why were virtually 0 of their 90 top search terms about medical procedures or conditions? Was it a difference in insurance coverage, their ability to see a physician? (I'm curious to see if there might be any shift in search terms if we changed the timetable to the past year, as more Americans gained coverage under the healthcare reform law.)
Providers often ask how they can measure whether they've improved the health of a population, and maybe one wonky way to do that is by closing the gap between the two Americas, defined in this case as the people who go to Google for healthcare versus those who go to a physician or other healthcare provider, or are healthy enough to not search conditions on the web. How can we use these search results to improve health literacy? How can we better inform people in these counties of the viable, safe healthcare options available to them?
The list of problems in American healthcare is a long one, and I've written about many of these deficiencies. But I keep coming back to idea of a man or woman in a neighborhood deemed hard to live, sitting at a computer and Googling "free medicine." Something about that is especially hard to take. It's even harder to wonder what he or she did with the results.