Project Tycho 2.0 has been released and now includes many more datasets that are standardized to improve inter-operability and re-use. Project Tycho has now become a repository for global health data in a standardized format that is more compliant with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) guidelines. The Project Tycho team continues to conduct research in the areas of infectious disease epidemiology and global health informatics, but also conducts services to help health agencies and researchers to improve access and use to global health data.
In 2013, we released the first version of Project Tycho containing weekly case counts for 50 notifiable conditions reported by health agencies in the United States for 50 states and 1284 cities between 1888 and 2014. Over the past four years, over 3000 users have registered to use Project Tycho data for a total of 40 creative works including peer-reviewed research papers, visualizations, online applications, and newspaper articles.
For this second version, Project Tycho has expanded its scope to a global level, the database includes more data, is more extensively standardized. Project Tycho 2.0 includes case counts for 28 additional notifiable conditions for the US and includes data for dengue-related conditions for 100 countries between 1955 and 2010, obtained from the World Health Organization and national health agencies. Project Tycho 2.0 datasets are represented in a standard format registered with FAIRsharing (bsg-s000718) and include standard SNOMED-CT codes for reported conditions, ISO 3166 codes for countries and first administrative level subdivisions, and NCBI TaxonID numbers for pathogens. Including these standard codes help to integrate Project Tycho datasets with other datasets. Information about Project Tycho datasets is available on the website in human-readable format, but can also in machine-interpretable DATS metadata files in JSON format.
In addition to the data, the Project Tycho website has been updated. More features will be added in the near future for an optimal user experience. If you have any ideas or suggestions to further improve Project Tycho data or the website, please let us know!