Celebrity effect in public health and bioethics: An “Italian case” in endometrio-sis prevention communication

Objective: To explore endometriosis-related digital seeking behaviour in Italy, after the showgirl Rossella Brescia announced to be affected by this gynecological disease. Methods: We performed a retrospective search of web-activities related to endometriosis, carried out in Italy, in the last 5 years, using Google Trends with “endometriosis” as keyword and “search topic” as search strategy. We used the section Google News in order to check the impact of media coverage on web behaviour. Results: Web-activities related to Rossella Brescia and endometriosis correlated in a statistically borderline significant way, even though peaks in endometriosis searches coincided with bursts in digital interest towards Rossella Brescia. Among the endometriosis-associated rising queries, “Rossella Brescia endometriosis” and “Rossella Brescia” were two of the most searched. Among Rossella Brescia-associated rising queries, “Rossella Brescia disease” yielded the first place (break out), whilst “Rossella Brescia endometriosis” the fourth place (breakout), “endometriosis” the fifth place (breakout) and “Rossella Brescia ill” the ninth place (breakout). Conclusions: Practitioners should become aware of the importance of new media in communicating the disease with their patients and workers in the field of public health should strengthen their presence online, exploiting celebrity effect in order to disseminate rigorous but accessible information and raise public awareness against the disease, methods of diagnosis and prevention.