From crisis to prevention: mining big data for public health insights during the flint water crisis

This study investigates the utility of Google Trends and Google Search data in retrospectively analyzing the Flint Water Crisis, a significant public health event. By examining keywords relevant to the crisis, such as “lead,” “bottled water,” “water filters,” “pneumonia,” and “Legionnaires’ Disease,” we aimed to uncover patterns in public awareness and response during a public crisis and explore how such awareness and responses could potentially aid in reducing the risk of similar crises in the future. Our analysis reveals a clear correlation between search frequencies and the crisis timeline, with spikes in search terms corresponding to key events. This suggests that such data can serve as a valuable tool for understanding public sentiment and behavior in the face of environmental disasters. The research underscores the potential of “Big Data,” led by search engines and social media platforms, in shaping public policy and informed decision-making. However, it also addresses the limitations and challenges in using these data sources, including issues of data consistency, replicability, and the influence of sociocultural contexts on search behaviors. The study advocates for the combined use of Google Trends and Google Search data, complemented by other datasets, for a more comprehensive understanding of public engagement in environmental crises. This work contributes to the growing field of infodemiology, emphasizing the importance of big data analysis in environmental science and public health research.