JAMA Internal Medicine. Accepted for Publication: June 10, 2020. Corresponding Author: John W. Ayers, PhD, MA, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr, 333 CRSF, La Jolla, CA 92093 ([email protected]). Published Online: August 24, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.3305

“There is widespread concern that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may harm population mental health, chiefly owing to anxiety about the disease and its societal fallout. But traditional population mental health surveillance (eg, telephone surveys, medical records) is time consuming, expensive, and may miss persons who do not participate or seek care. To evaluate the association of COVID-19 with anxiety on a population basis, we examined internet searches indicative of acute anxiety during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic…”