The COVID-19 pandemic brought about nationwide lockdowns in the Spring of 2020 which restricted indoor activity. As interest in outdoor activities rose, it is unknown whether this was accompanied by increased concern for sunburns and photoprotection.
We used Google Trends to assess public interest in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain as it relates to sunburn and sun protection at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (May-August 2020) and one year after (May-August 2021). Google Trends calculates the quantity of searches for a given term relative to the total number of searches performed on Google, allowing for interpretation of search term popularity over a specified time range. Search terms included “sunburn”, “sunscreen”, “SPF”, and “outdoor”. Primary measurements were average weekly search volume indices (SVI) normalized on a scale from 0-100. We used student T-Tests to compare search activity.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, interest in “outdoor” activities rose to the highest level seen in five years (p<.01), coincident with an increase in searches for sunburn and a decrease for sunscreen. In 2021, however, interest in sunburn went down to pre-pandemic levels while interest in outdoor activities also dropped, but remained above pre-pandemic levels (p<.01). At the same time, in 2021, interest in sunscreen and SPF rose to the highest level seen in five years (p<.01), with interest in sunscreen nearly doubling in 2021 compared to 2020. The same trend of increased interest in photoprotection were observed in every other country except Spain where search volumes for SPF and sunscreen remained largely unchanged. Despite this, searches for “sunburn” still decreased in Spain by almost 70% in 2020 and 2021(p<.01). This is the first study to demonstrate an upward trend in healthy sun practices as indicated by decreased sunburn searches and increased interest in photoprotection since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This represents a unique opportunity for clinicians to harness this interest and collaborate with their patients to improve skin health as the pandemic continues to evolve.

ESDRLB017 - Interest in photoprotection increased as sunburn-related searches decreased with the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, insights from an international Google Trends analysis

50th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Dermatological Research. VIRTUAL MEETING