Visual analysis of obesity-related query terms on HealthLink

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate obesity-related queries from a public health portal (HealthLink) transaction log. Design/methodology/approach – Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was applied to each of five obesity-related focus keywords and their co-occurring terms in submitted queries. After the transaction log data were collected and cleaned, and query terms were extracted and parsed, relationships between a focus keyword and its co-occurring terms were established. Clustering relationships between focus keywords and their co-occurring terms were identified and analysed in the MDS visual context. Findings – The MDS analysis produced satisfactory outcomes for all five focus keywords. The term “placements”, in the visual configurations revealed strong grouping tendencies of three to five clusters for each focus keyword. Originality/value – The findings of this study provide insights into health consumers’ internet-based information-seeking behaviour on obesity-related topics. These findings could be used to enhance online search system design and health-related thesaurus construction.