An Infodemiology Approach to Assess the Impact of the Great Recession on Anxiety and Depression in France.

Abstract Background: The global financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent sovereign debt crisis in Europe had a profound multidimensional impact on developed economies, including on the construct of health. Mental health is a key factor for productivity and an indicator of the general well-being of the population. France poses mental health and public policies characteristics that differentiated it from other countries of the European Union. This study aimed to assess whether depression and anxiety increased throughout the course of the 2008 debt crisis in France. Methods: This is an ecological study using an infodemiology approach. The search terms for depression and anxiety were extended with related words according to culture to form a distress index. Google Trends was used to mine the distress index search terms in a period before the debt crisis (2004) until 2018, using open source libraries, and pandas to merge information. Diverse economic- and employment-related datasets for France were used as covariates in multiple linear regression analyses, and the expected seasonal variability as a dummy variable. Results: The results showed that for each additional demand for unemployment benefits, search traffic for the distress index was expected to increase by 0.09% (p< 0.001, r2 0.89), even after controlling for the expected seasonal variations in the distress index. However, there was no significant association with unemployment rate. Conclusions: Contrary to reports from other countries, the mild effect of demand for unemployment benefits on the distress index may be explained by aspects of social protection policies in France.