Regional disparities in information-seeking response to the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Abstract The emergence of the COVID-19 virus and the subsequent official announcement of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 alarmed the public and initiated the uptake of preventive measures. We conducted interrupted time-series analyses using Baidu Search Index from Jan 1, 2017 to Mar 15, 2021 to investigate how information seeking changed over time and how changes in information seeking varied across regions in China. Our findings show that changes in the patterns of search interest in COVID-19 in each province of China occurred in a synchronous fashion during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent local outbreaks, irrespective of the location and severity of each outbreak. However, inequalities in the magnitude of public response to and awareness of COVID-19 were evident, with lower-levels of information seeking regarding COVID-19 in less developed areas compared with developed areas.