Worldwide GT analysis was conducted for the disease topic “Concussion” with the categorical filter “Health” from 2004-2020. This period’s monthly popularity scores with annual averages and annual high school sports participation data were subsequently obtained from Google Trends and the National Federation of State High School Associations, respectively.

Concurrence of significant score changes with CTE studies’ publication, release of 2015 film Concussion, and the COVID-19 pandemic validates GT’s measurement of public interest. From 2006-2016, Pearson’s correlation coefficients demonstrated strong negative correlation between GT popularity scores for “Concussion” with total number of high school football participants overall (R² = 0.8553) and participants per school (R² = 0.9533). Confirming football-related seasonality, one-way ANOVA regression analysis concluded 2004-2020's mean change in month-specific popularity score is not the same (p = 3.193E-08), and months during football season had statistically significant variability (September: p = 4.389E-05) with elevated average z-scores.