Spatio-temporal Differences in the Filipinos’ Search Trends for Toothache and Milk Tea

Background. Since 1987, data regarding dental caries prevalence in the Philippines has been shown to be over 90%.

Objective. This study compared the trends of Filipino web searches regarding toothache and milk tea from 2017 to2019 through spatio-temporal analyses.

Methods. Google Trends searches for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019 were done using three separate search queries using the parameters “toothache” (TA) and “milk tea” (MT) as search terms, Philippines as location, Health as category, and Web Search as database.

Results. The outcome showed a decreasing trend in searches for toothache and an increasing interest for milk tea web searches from 2017 to 2019. A multiple comparison test showed that searches for MT were significantly more than TA in 2017 (p<0.001), 2018 (p<0.001), and 2019 (p<0.001). Searches for TA during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter compared to the 1st quarter of the year, in Caraga, Eastern Visayas, Western Visayas and Zamboanga Peninsula compared to Manila, were found to be significantly high.

Conclusion. Filipinos’ health-seeking behavior show decreasing interest towards TA and increasing for MT.