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Facile Dashboard Creation Using Library of Syndromic Surveillance Visualization Tools

Description

Public health surveillance largely relies on the use of surveillance systems to facilitate the identification and investigation of epidemiologic concerns reflected in data. In order to support public health response, these systems must present relevant information, and be user-friendly, dynamic, and easily-implementable. The abundance of R tools freely-available online for data analysis and visualization presents not only opportunities but also challenges for adoption in that these tools must be integrated so as to allow a structured workflow. Many public health surveillance practitioners do not have the time available to 1) scavenge for tools, 2) align their functions so as to create a relevant set of visuals, and 3) integrate these visuals into a dashboard that allows a streamlined surveillance workflow. An openly-available, structured framework that allows simple integration of analytic capabilities packaged into readily- implementable modules would simplify the creation of relevant dashboard visuals by surveillance practitioners. 

Objective

A framework and toolbox for creating point-and-click dashboard applications (at no cost) for monitoring several facets of syndromic surveillance data were created. These tools (and associated documentation) are being made available freely online for other surveillance practitioners to adopt. 

Submitted by Magou on