Scientific Publication Behavior versus Information Seeking Behavior: An Infodemiological Study on Stomach Cancer

Based on Eysenbach’s view, infodemiology can be defined as the science of distribution and determinants of information in an electronic medium, specifically the Internet, or in a population, with the ultimate aim to inform public health and public policy. The current study aimed to investigate the state of health information supply and demand on stomach cancer among Iranian medical researchers and Iranian web users during 2011 to 2015. A mixed method research was conducted in this study. In qualitative part, a focus group interview was applied to the users to identify their selected keywords searched for stomach cancer on Google. The collected data were analyzed using Open Code software. In quantitative part, data were synthesized using R software in two parts. First, users’ Internet information seeking behavior (ISB) was analyzed using Google Trends outputs during 2011 to 2015. Second, the scientific publication behavior (SPB) of Iranian