Is “Movember” an Effective Prostate Cancer Awareness Campaign Beyond the English Language? Insights From Google Trends Among Spanish Speakers

Objective: To evaluate the impact of the “Movember” awareness campaign (men’s health campaign that takesplace every November) on internet search trends for information online about prostate cancer and to compare theresults with those for “Pinktober” (the breast cancer awareness campaign that takes place in October) in the Spanishlanguage as an indirect measure of its effectiveness.Methods: Google Trends was used to evaluate the monthly relative search volumes (RSV) of the terms “cancer deprostata” (prostate cancer), “cancer de mama” (breast cancer), and “Movember” from January 2009 to December2019 both in Spain and worldwide (in the Spanish language). Breast cancer was used as a comparator of the campaignimpact. Mean increase in RSV on-campaign and off-campaign was calculated and compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and Joinpoint regression analysis to assess loss or gain of interest.Results: The term “cancer de prostata” showed a statistically significant increase during the campaign monthsboth in Spain (17.4%; P < 0.001) and worldwide (35.4%; P < 0.001). Both “cancer de prostata” and Movember showed adecreasing trend worldwide and in Spain, while “cancer de mama” showed an increasing trend.Conclusion: The Movember campaign generates a statistically significant increase in the search trends on “cancerde prostata” (prostate cancer) during the month of November (both in Spain and worldwide); when compared with thebreast cancer campaign “Pinktober” these increases are of a lesser magnitude but still significant, suggesting that thecampaign is effective beyond the English language, although the interest has been decreasing throughout the years.