Associations Between Online Search Trends and Outpatient Visits for Common Medical Symptoms in the United States from 2004 to 2019: Time Series Ecological Study

This supports that, on a population level, exploring online health information about some common, acute symptoms did not lead to increase in care seeking, but instead, suggests that a substantial portion of the population found the information to be reassuring or informative enough to not feel the need to seek care from a primary health care provider. With the rapid evolution and availability of more detailed and personalized information from various large language models, it is likely that internet search habits of users will continue to grow, and with it, continue to transform interactions with the health care system.