HealthPop: A geocoding, spatial workflow and contextual data integration platform

 描述(由申请人提供)：在过去的25年里，研究背景对人类健康的影响的研究出现了爆炸性增长。随着电子病历和健康信息学的大规模扩展，这项研究将继续增长。然而，空间、多层次和背景健康研究需要在专业人员、软件和数据方面进行重大投资。项目必须雇用地理信息系统专家，购买复杂而昂贵的专有软件，开发定制工作流程，并识别和协调来自各种来源的上下文数据。HealthPop将通过一个端到端的、免费的、透明的、集成的、基于网络的平台，让新的和有经验的研究人员和从业人员能够对健康和调查数据进行地理编码，并构建和访问背景变量，从而使获取背景健康研究的机会大众化。新的基础设施将最大限度地扩大获取机会，降低成本，最大限度地提高透明度，最大限度地减少重复劳动，提高背景数据的质量，并使人口健康科学，特别是关于健康的社会和环境决定因素的科学，更容易被复制。该项目有四个主要目标：(1)提供一个免费、安全的基于网络的平台，允许用户对个人级别的(健康)记录进行地理编码；(2)为通常执行的空间操作(如缓冲和集群检测)开发基于网络的工作流程；(3)创建一个多样化和可扩展的上下文健康数据库，包括可链接到地理编码的健康记录的集成、一致的元数据；以及(4)向包括学生、教师、研究人员和公共卫生专业人员在内的广泛用户社区提供传播、推广和培训。该项目将由一组积极进取的研究人员实施，他们在大规模数据创建、集成和传播方面拥有非凡的经验和熟练程度，并将利用尖端技术对公共卫生数据进行地理编码和背景分析，以进行创新和与政策相关的分析。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The last 25 years have seen an explosion in research examining contextual effects on human health. This research will continue to grow with the massive expansion of electronic medical records and health informatics. Yet, spatial, multilevel, and contextual health research requires major investment in specialized personnel, software, and data. Projects must employ GIS specialists, purchase complex and expensive proprietary software, develop custom workflows, and identify and harmonize contextual data from a wide variety of sources. HealthPop will democratize access to contextual health research through an end-to-end, free, transparent, integrated, web-based platform that allows new and experienced researchers and practitioners to geocode health and survey data and both construct and access contextual variables. The new infrastructure will maximize access, reduce costs, maximize transparency, minimize redundant effort, improve the quality of contextual data, and make population health science, especially as regards the social and environmental determinants of health, more easily replicable. The project has four main goals: (1) To provide a free, secure web-based platform that allows users to geocode person-level (health) records; (2) To develop web-based workflows for commonly executed spatial operations such as buffering and cluster detection; (3) To create a diverse and scalable contextual health data repository, including integrated, consistent metadata, that may be linked to geocoded health records; and (4) To provide dissemination, outreach, and training to a broad user community, including students, faculty, researchers, and public health professionals. The project will be executed by team of highly-motivated researchers with exceptional experience and proficiency in large-scale data creation, integration, and dissemination and will leverage cutting-edge technology to geocode and contextualize public health data for innovative and policy- relevant analyses.