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MRSA Hand Washing Message Lost Online
October 23, 2007
The tragic death of a Virginia teenager and a federal report issued last week raised public concerns about MRSA also known as Staph Infection. I've been blogging for Hitwise in the UK for the past couple of years and MRSA has been an on-going and high profile concern there - particularly for hospitals. With the federal report and seeming outbreak in US high schools, last week consumers went online to do research. First I'll give you some data to put this in context and then I'll get into the real story - a missed opportunity to get the hand washing message out to a large audience.
The term "mrsa" was the 88th highest volume search term last week in the US. Removing navigational search terms, "mrsa" jumps to #8. The term "staph infection" ranked #262 among all search terms. Among search terms sending US Internet visits to Health and Medical websites, "mrsa" was the third highest volume term, after "webmd" and "web md"; "staph infection" ranked #5 (after "walgreens").
Share of US Internet searches for "mrsa" were up 8 fold last week and for "staph infection" up 7 fold. Last week searches for both terms were far higher than at any other time in the past 15 months.
Looking at Search Term Suggestions, we can see the keywords people include in queries to gain insight into why people are performing a particular query. In this case US consumers are looking for background information on the disease (i.e. "what is mrsa") and symptoms.
Searches for "mrsa" and "staph infection" sent consumers to different websites. The favored destinations for searches for "mrsa" last week were the Mayo Clinic, Wikipedia and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The favored destinations for searches for "staph infection" were completely different - Go Ask Alice, MedecineNet and KidsHealth.
The startling thing about this list of websites is that officials are missing a huge opportunity to communicate the best defence against infection - hand washing. The local press in affected areas are covering the importance of hand washing based on announcements and releases from school, health and government officials. However, the search results don't list these websites in the top results.
Some of the websites consumers are visiting include information on prevention but it is usually mentioned as a measure for hospital staff and is buried below loads of background information. Presumably officials want to reach a wide audience to reduce infection rates and slow spread. Why not take out a paid search listing along the lines of "Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones - Wash Your Hands"?
Paid search listings would be a great way to get the message out quickly, to a broad audience and at a fairly low cost.
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 08:29 AM
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Comments
Handwashing is only a start. This is a bigger issue long term.
Get a free MRSA Staph Guide to learn about protecting your child from MRSA.
Posted by Joe | October 24, 2007 11:27 PM
hey how long has it been since someone last had MRSA in witch hospital?And where???
Posted by Anonymous | December 14, 2007 03:27 PM
If you check out the Google top-ranking MRSA article from MayoClinic.com you'll see that it contains a prevention section that includes information about handwashing plus a link to an article with more details about the benefits of handwashing.
Posted by Brian Laing | October 24, 2007 08:05 AM