Data Mashups: Potential Contribution to Decision Support on Climate Change and Health
by
Lora E. Fleming 1,*
, Andy Haines 2, Brian Golding 3, Anthony Kessel 4, Anna Cichowska 4, Clive E. Sabel 5, Michael H. Depledge 1, Christophe Sarran 3, Nicholas J. Osborne 1, Ceri Whitmore 1, Nicola Cocksedge 1 and Daniel Bloomfield 1
, Andy Haines 2, Brian Golding 3, Anthony Kessel 4, Anna Cichowska 4, Clive E. Sabel 5, Michael H. Depledge 1, Christophe Sarran 3, Nicholas J. Osborne 1, Ceri Whitmore 1, Nicola Cocksedge 1 and Daniel Bloomfield 1
1
European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, Cornwall TR1 3HD, UK
2
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK
3
Met Office, Exeter, Devon EX1 3PB, UK
4
Public Health England, London SW1W 9SZ, UK
5
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11(2), 1725-1746; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110201725
Received: 14 October 2013 / Revised: 16 January 2014 / Accepted: 16 January 2014 / Published: 4 February 2014
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Change and Human Health)
Linking environmental, socioeconomic and health datasets provides new insights into the potential associations between climate change and human health and wellbeing, and underpins the development of decision support tools that will promote resilience to climate change, and thus enable more effective adaptation. This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities presented by advances in data collection, storage, analysis, and access, particularly focusing on “data mashups”. These data mashups are integrations of different types and sources of data, frequently using open application programming interfaces and data sources, to produce enriched results that were not necessarily the original reason for assembling the raw source data. As an illustration of this potential, this paper describes a recently funded initiative to create such a facility in the UK for use in decision support around climate change and health, and provides examples of suitable sources of data and the purposes to which they can be directed, particularly for policy makers and public health decision makers.
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Keywords:
data linkage; evidence base; environmental change; data platforms; climate change; surveillance systems; environmental health; ecological public health; big data; vulnerable populations
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
MDPI and ACS Style
Fleming, L.E.; Haines, A.; Golding, B.; Kessel, A.; Cichowska, A.; Sabel, C.E.; Depledge, M.H.; Sarran, C.; Osborne, N.J.; Whitmore, C.; Cocksedge, N.; Bloomfield, D. Data Mashups: Potential Contribution to Decision Support on Climate Change and Health. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11, 1725-1746.
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