Herpes: Florida’s Most Googled Health Problem, Study Says

TAMPA, FL — While asthma, diabetes and obesity are big concerns in many states across the country, people in Florida turn to “Dr. Google” most frequently to find out about herpes. That’s according to a recent analysis of Google Trends data that sought to uncover the most commonly searched up health problems by state.

“Most of us have had a scare or two after googling a symptom,” Cosette Jarret, community outreach coordinator at HighSpeedInternet.com told Patch. “Although it's likely a simple cold is the culprit of our health concerns, the content that comes up when we search a common symptom online often leads us to believe it's something much more extreme. This is why the analysts at HighSpeedInternet.com and Medicare Health Plans decided to team up to identify what health condition each state was most paranoid about according to Google.”

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The analytical teams used Google Trends to pinpoint the most frequently searched health-related keywords across the country over the past year. The results were then cross-referenced to provide a state-by-state breakdown of the health conditions that residents consulted Google about.

Florida's fixation with herpes was shared by only one other state, according to the analysis. It seems folks in Mississippi are also pretty concerned about the condition. People in Georgia have syphilis on their minds while those in Alabama seem to have itching concerns. Other interesting findings analysts gleaned from the data and sources such as the U.S. Centers and Disease Control and Prevention included:

• Folks in Wyoming and New Hampshire googled health conditions more frequently than residents in any other states. People in Oregon and Nevada had the lowest search volume.
• North Carolina and Alabama, states with high chlamydia rates, searched itching more than any other health complaint.

As for Florida and others states where sexually-transmitted diseases topped the searches, figures from the Florida Department of Health shed some light on why that may be so. FDOH estimates 20 million new STD cases are reported across the country each year. About half those cases involve people between the ages of 15 and 24. In Florida, three out of four reported STD cases involve people between the age 15 and 29.

As for herpes, the state says an estimated one of six Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes. “Up to 90 percent of them don’t even know they have it,” FDOH’s website says.

To check out the full analysis and find out which health problems are the biggest concerns in other states, visit Medicare Health Plans online.

Main image via Shutterstock/Map courtesy of HighSpeedInternet.com