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We are limited by data that is both spatially resolved to country-level as well as temporally resolved. That is one of the biggest strengths of GIDEON, as a lot of the time, we only have one or the other.
Dr. Tad A. Dallas
Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University
In November 2019, The Royal Society published an open-access, unfunded research “Testing predictability of disease outbreaks with a simple model of pathogen biography” written by three enthusiastic researchers – Dr. Tad A. Dallas, Dr. Colin J. Carlson, and Dr. Timothée Poisot.
To predict future outbreaks, they looked for patterns in the past, using the GIDEON dataset to create a model that was able to ‘capture pathogen outbreak and reemergence potential suggesting that these events are both recurrent and predictable’.
Embarking on a project, the team initially found it difficult to locate the right data source.
“There isn’t any cohesive narrative about where outbreaks happen. We used the GIDEON data because we thought it might be the most complete thing there is. I don’t think we could have modeled the data set we did without GIDEON data, for sure”, said Colin J. Carlson.
GIDEON has a dedicated geographical distribution dataset for each Infectious Disease, which defines the endemic countries and provides country-specific notes as well as an in-depth analysis of global distribution.
The dataset helped Tad, Colin, and Timothee save months of time that would have otherwise been spent conducting manual research. The team produced a fantastic piece of work that challenges the status quo and suggests a new way of thinking.
GIDEON API is designed to help retrieve data programmatically, which is especially useful when working with data modeling. The R wrapper allows epidemiologists to query the database using a familiar environment.
GIDEON renders interactive maps of disease distribution and outbreaks.
GIDEON provides an in-depth analysis of global disease spread. The database provides information on 28,000+ historical outbreaks and cross-border events, 100,000+ surveys, and 24,000+ country-specific notes.
GIDEON is curated by a team of highly regarded medical scientists who are updating the database daily.