La búsqueda de información y su asociación con la producción científica: Obesidad, dieta y salud laboral

Introduction: Analyze the association between the search for information on obesity, diet, and occupational health and safety through Google, and scientific production on these topics to determine whether the population’s interest is related to the research activity. Method: Data were obtained from direct, online consultation of Google Trends (GT) with the terms obesity, diet and occupational health and safety and from MEDLINE (via PubMed), using the Medical Subject Headings “Obesity”, “Diet, Food, and Nutrition” and “Occupational Health”. The variables studied were: relative search volume (RSV), average monthly RSV (RSVa), references (REF), relative reference volume (RRV) and Variability. Results: The trends obtained (RSVa) in GT were decreasing in the three cases: obesity (R2=0.33; p=0.009), diet (R2=0.68; p<0.001); occupational health (R2=0.41; p=0,002). For the RRVs obtained from MEDLINE, were increasing for obesity and diet (R2=0.85; p<0.001 and R2=0.85; p<0.001); for occupational health the trend was non-significant (R2=0.03; p=0.509). The variability obtained for the RRV versus the RSVa (value equal to 100) gave: obesity -18.71, diet -1.18 and occupational health 63.65. Conclusions: There was a growing interest of the scientific community, measured by its production, in obesity, diet and occupational health, while the population’s interest in these topics was decreasing throughout the period studied, so the relationship between scientific production and searches was inverse. On the other hand, it was possible to observe a notorious lack of interest, from the population and researchers, in the importance of the workplace as a vector for the prevention and treatment of obesity.