Data Sharing Working Group

The objective of this working group is to develop a framework for data sharing during public health emergencies, including the question of governance and the issues of a repository and data standards.

The working group continues to progress in the key areas outlined in the first newsletter: developing principles for data sharing, mapping the data sharing landscape of Public Health Emergencies (PHE) and developing a firm understanding of the needs of the research community in terms of data sharing during a PHE. With this in mind, the group has refined its action plan for data sharing in a public health emergency.

One new area is the development of a decision tree for data sharing in PHEs. The decision tree will address the types of data that need to be shared during a PHE, and how and when that data should be shared.

The group is aiming to follow Zika-related projects in real-time to understand their data sharing activities and is very keen to do this with a variety of projects. Therefore, if GloPID-R members have a PHE project that has data sharing at its core, please let the Data Sharing Working Group know. Discussions have already started with some potential projects.

Going forward, the group has identified engagement as a critical facet of its work, and members are planning to attend, discuss and speak about data sharing in a PHE at a variety of international meetings, including International Data Week (Denver) in September, Grand Challenges (London) in October and the International meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance (Vienna) in November.