Could Google Trends be a tool for monitoring teens’ tobacco-related behavior? An ecological study based on national data in Turkey

The lack of data on recent youth tobacco use in Turkey underscores the need for additional surveillance tools. This study investigated the potential of Google Trends data to monitor tobacco-related behaviors among Turkish youth. This study analyzed gender-specific 2017 Global Youth Tobacco Survey Turkey results and Google Trends relative search volumes (RSV) data for selected keywords across 81 provinces using an ecological design. Positive correlations were observed between prevalences of current cigarette smoking, ever cigarette smoking, and susceptibility to smoking among girls with RSVs for "cigarette" term (<i>r</i> = 0.602, <i>p</i> < 0.001; <i>r</i> = 0.426, <i>p</i> < 0.001; <i>r</i> = 0.309, <i>p</i> = 0.005) and topic (<i>r</i> = 0.511, <i>p</i> < 0.001; <i>r</i> = 0.390, <i>p</i> < 0.001; <i>r</i> = 0.325, <i>p</i> = 0.003). For both genders, positive correlations were observed in the prevalence of current waterpipe smoking with "waterpipe" term (boys: <i>r</i> = 0.412, <i>p</i> < 0.001; girls: <i>r</i> = 0.432, <i>p</i> < 0.001) and topic (boys: <i>r</i> = 0.408, <i>p</i> < 0.001; girls: <i>r</i> = 0.517, <i>p</i> < 0001) RSVs. Google Trends could hold potential as a complementary, low-cost tool for monitoring tobacco-related youth behaviors in Turkey.