{"id":22746,"date":"2020-06-15T13:44:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T11:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iiasa.ac.at\/?p=22746"},"modified":"2020-06-15T14:38:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T12:38:28","slug":"the-iiasa-covid-19-dashboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iiasa.ac.at\/2020\/06\/15\/the-iiasa-covid-19-dashboard\/","title":{"rendered":"The IIASA COVID-19 dashboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tadeusz Bara-Slupski, Artificial Intelligence for Good<\/a> initiative leader, Appsilon Data Science<\/em><\/p>\n

Tadeusz Bara-Slupski discusses the Artificial Intelligence for Good initiative\u2019s recent collaboration with IIASA to develop an interactive COVID-19 data visualization tool.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Number of hospital beds per 1000 population \u00a9 IIASA
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Public institutions rely on external data sources and analysis to guide policymaking and intervention. Through our AI for Good initiative, we support organizations that provide such inputs with our technical expertise. We were recently approached by IIASA to create a dashboard to visualize COVID-19 data. This builds on our previous collaboration<\/a>, which had us deliver a decision-making tool for natural disaster risk planning in Madagascar. In this article, we provide an example of how to help policymakers navigate the ocean of available data with dashboards that turn these data into actionable information.<\/p>\n

Data is useful information when it creates value\u2026or saves lives<\/strong><\/p>\n

The current pandemic emergency has put an unprecedented strain on both public health services and policymaking bodies around the world. Government action has been constrained in many cases by limited access to equipment and personnel. Adequate policymaking can help to coordinate the emergency relief effort effectively, make better use of scarce resources, and prevent such shortages in the future. This, however, requires access to secure, timely, and accurate information.<\/p>\n

Governments commission various public bodies and research institutes to provide such data both for planning and coordinating the response. For instance, in the UK, the government commissioned the National Health Service (NHS) to build a data platform<\/a> to consolidate a number of data providers into one single source. However, for the data to be useful it must be presented in a way that is consistent with the demands of an emergency situation. Therefore, the NHS partnered with a number of tech companies to visualize the data in dashboards and to provide deeper insights. Raw data, regardless of its quality, is not useful information until it is understood in a way that creates value \u2013 or in this case informs action that could save lives.<\/p>\n

IIASA approached us to support them in making their COVID-19 data and indicators more useful to policymakers. The institute\u2019s research is used by policymakers around the world to make critical decisions. We appreciated the opportunity to use our skills to support their efforts by creating an interactive data visualization tool.<\/p>\n

IIASA COVID-19 report and mapbook<\/strong><\/p>\n

Research indicates that while all segments of the population are vulnerable to the virus, not all countries are equally vulnerable at the same time. Therefore, there is a need for accurate socioeconomic and demographic data to inform the allocation of scarce resources between countries and even within countries.<\/p>\n

IIASA responded to this need with a regularly updated website<\/a> and data report: \u201cCOVID-19: Visualizing regional socioeconomic indicators for Europe\u201d<\/a>. The reader is introduced to a range of demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related indicators for European Union member countries and sub-regions in five categories:<\/p>\n