PMC - Wikipedia page views for health research

paper

PubMed Central(peer-reviewed)·pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10353851/

Credibility Rating

4/5

High(4)

High quality. Established institution or organization with editorial oversight and accountability.

Rating inherited from publication venue: PubMed Central

This paper is tangential to AI safety; it may have minor relevance to topics like information quality, internet-based behavioral signals, or AI-assisted health surveillance, but is primarily a public health methodology review.

Metadata

Importance: 12/100journal articleanalysis

Summary

This systematic review examines 29 studies using Wikipedia page view data for health research, covering disease surveillance, public interest tracking, and health education evaluation. It demonstrates how Wikipedia's role as a primary online health information source enables novel epidemiological and behavioral research methodologies. The review also highlights methodological limitations and calls for standardized research practices.

Key Points

•Wikipedia page views serve as a proxy for public health information-seeking behavior, enabling disease incidence prediction and trend tracking.
•Researchers combine Wikipedia data with other internet sources (Google, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit) for richer health surveillance insights.
•Studies span non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases, and health interventions, showing broad applicability of the approach.
•Public events (outbreaks, media coverage) measurably influence Wikipedia health page traffic, offering real-time behavioral signals.
•The review identifies significant methodological inconsistencies across studies and recommends standardization for future research.

Cited by 1 page

Page	Type	Quality
Wikipedia Views	Project	38.0

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 Front Big Data . 2023 Jul 4;6:1199060. doi: 10.3389/fdata.2023.1199060 
 
 
 Wikipedia page views for health research: a review

 
 Rowalt Alibudbud 
 Rowalt Alibudbud 

 
 1 Department of Sociology and Behavioral Sciences, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines 
 Find articles by Rowalt Alibudbud 
 
 
 1, * 
 
 
 Author information 

 Article notes 

 Copyright and License information 

 
 
 
 
 1 Department of Sociology and Behavioral Sciences, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines 
 
 Edited by: V. E. Sathishkumar, Jeonbuk National University, Republic of Korea

 
 Reviewed by: Dhavalkumar Patel, IBM Research, United States

 
 
 ✉ *Correspondence: Rowalt Alibudbud rowalt.alibudbud@dlsu.edu.ph 

 
 
 
 Received 2023 Apr 2; Accepted 2023 Jun 22; Collection date 2023.

 
 
 Copyright © 2023 Alibudbud. 
 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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 PMCID: PMC10353851  PMID: 37469441 
 
 Abstract

 Wikipedia is an open-source online encyclopedia and one of the most-read sources of online health information. Likewise, Wikipedia page views have also been analyzed to inform public health services and policies. The present review analyzed 29 studies utilizing Wikipedia page views for health research. Most reviewed studies were published in recent years and emanated from high-income countries. Together with Wikipedia p

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Resource ID: c877dca84f885292 | Stable ID: sid_jtqsWv0QE5