Using Public Health Data Sources

I completed the “Using Public Health Data Sources” course held by Madecraft and Jennifer Shin on the Linkedin Learning online platform. The course focuses on the importance of knowing how to analyze both data and the sources from which they are taken. Taking a cue from the enormity of data collected during the Covid19 pandemic, he addresses various issues. Among the most important we find the importance of being able to verify the correctness of the data and use them correctly. Various concepts are also addressed that allow to analyze and identify reliable sources and evaluate the quality of the information collected.

In particular, the course starts from the problems encountered in collecting good data on the Covid19 pandemic. Address different points such as the difficulty in finding them and then being able to use them. Not least that of evaluating their accuracy and quality, of the data and of the source itself. Several worldwide databases are presented:

• COVID-19 Data Repository, database managed by Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering
• BNO News,
• Worldometer,
• 1Point3Acres,
• The Covid Tracking Project,

These focus more on the United States, while for the rest of the world:

• Our World in Data
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention Data

For each source from which data is taken it is always necessary to evaluate:

• Availability
• Usability
• Accuracy
• Quality

Only once you are sure of the validity of this information is it possible to work with this data and obtain correct results. Otherwise it is always necessary to estimate the error committed.