Frequently Asked Questions: Data Pipeline Pilot Projects

Surveillance and data are the foundation of public health practice. That’s why CDC continues to focus on strategically improving the systems and approaches used to gather and connect data. This work is part of the Data Modernization Initiative that CDC is spearheading to help state, territorial, local, and tribal (STLT) health departments reduce the significant manual effort needed to access clean, analysis-ready data for public health action across multiple data sources and use cases. This effort resulted in a working prototype of a customizable, cloud-based data pipeline comprised of a “quick start” set of “building blocks” serving as fundamental tools that automatically process raw datasets (lab results, case reports, and vaccines) in a single place. Within this system, data is standardized, geocoded, deduplicated, and linked to better facilitate patient and case-level analyses. The prototype saves time and manual effort, increases data processing speed, creates a single source of truth for incoming data, and removes the need for duplicative processes.