India's COVID-19 Burdens, 2020

The purpose of this article is two pronged; first, to identify and report public health implications of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and second, to report challenges uniquely faced by the citizens of India from a population health perspective. We have done both while closely examining epidemiological data that is accessible via SMAART's RAPID Tracker. This policy informatics platform is a live database aimed to track the geospatial spread of the COVID-19 outbreak and policy actions globally and is administered collaboratively by CUNY's Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and a global, non-profit public health incubator. Infectivity, incidence, and recovery rates were computed and graphical representations of epidemiological datasets were studied. We have discussed a plausible conceptual framework based on the principles of population health informatics for countries with similar characteristics to build a stronger public and community health foundation in order to safeguard populations during a health emergency in the future.

SMAART RAPID Tracker: A Global Policy Informatics tool to track COVID-19 outbreak (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED In the wake of COVID-19 there has been a large increase of data being generated globally. Basic elements of data, such as incidence, prevalence, and mortality, have already been aggregated to form various dashboard illustrating the spread of COVID-19 across the world. However, it is important to consider not only the rate and trajectory of the virus’s proliferation, but how various countries have responded to the outbreak and the effects of their responses. The SMAART RAPID Tracker integrates information about spread and fatality rates of the disease, but displays them alongside the policies countries have taken in response to the disease. The RAPID Tracker provides comprehensible data visualizations to empower any users to understand the scope of the disease and the different strategies countries are taking. These visualizations are further utilized to highlight insights on a country or state level and allow users to directly compare countries or states. Finally, the RAPID Tracker provides a list of reliable and accurate resources for users to learn more about COVID-19 and how to protect themselves. Policy makers and government agencies can utilize the dashboard as a decision-aid tool to assess the impact of the policies on COVID-19 outbreak to make evidence-based decisions. Especially during a time when testing is scarce and vaccines and treatments are unavailable, it is crucial that policymakers and citizens of the world have access to accurate and meaningful information to inform their behaviors.

Opportunities and Challenges of Policy Informatics

Contemporary societies face complex problems that challenge the sustainability of their social and economic systems. Such problems may require joint efforts from the public and private sectors as well as from the society at large in order to find innovative solutions. In addition, the open government movement constitutes a revitalized wave of access to data to promote innovation through transparency, participation and collaboration. This paper argues that currently there is an opportunity to combine emergent information technologies, new analytical methods, and open data in order to develop innovative solutions to some of the pressing problems in modern societies. Therefore, the objective is to propose a conceptual model to better understand policy innovations based on three pillars: data, information technologies, and analytical methods and techniques. The potential benefits generated from the creation of organizations with advanced analytical capabilities within governments, universities, and non-governmental organizations are numerous and the expected positive impacts on society are significant. However, this paper also discusses some important political, organizational, and technical challenges.