Infodemiology of alcohol use in hong kong mentioned on blogs: Infoveillance study

Background: in 2007 and 2008,the beer and wine tax in hong kong was halved and then abolished,resulting in an increase of alcohol consumption. the prevalence of the internet and a high blogging rate by adolescents and adults present a unique opportunity to study drinking patterns by infodemiology. objective: to assess and explain the online use of alcohol-related chinese keywords and to validate blog searching as an infoveillance method for surveying changes in drinking patterns (eg,alcohol type) in hong kong people (represented by bloggers on a hong kong-based chinese blogging site) in 2005-2010. methods: blog searching was done using a blog search engine,google blog search,in the archives of a hong kong-based blog service provider,mysinablog from 2005-2010. three groups of chinese keywords,each representing a specific alcohol-related concept,were used: (1) alcohol (ie,the control concept),(2) beer or wine