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The CIVIC project Predicting Covid-19 Impact on Vulnerable Individuals and Communities via Health and Loyalty Card data
Safe People
University of Nottingham
Academic Institute
James GouldingProf Nic TimpsonProf Markus OwensDr Anya SkatovaDr John HarveyProf Chris StarmerProf Andrew Smith
Safe Projects
B3737
Diseases such as COVID-19 are not defeated, and there remains an urgent need for improved modelling of disease incidence to support future early-warning systems; improved prevalence estimation; and understanding of long term impacts to vulnerable communities. Finding data to underpin such analyses, however, is extremely difficult indeed. Much COVID incidence goes completely unreported; even the largest studies are limited to tiny fractions of the population, and biased towards specific demographics; and generalized studies have to use either tip-of-the-iceberg medical statistics (ONS, NHS), fine-grained but unsustainable self-reporting technologies (e.g. KCL’s COVID Symptom Study app), or broad brush behavioural data (e.g. Google COVID-19 mobility reports, Social media data). With a lack of widespread adoption of track-and-trace systems in the UK, and (understandably) declining public engagement with self-reporting initiatives, new approaches are urgently required.
The aim, and target impact, of this research is 3-fold: 1. To establish the potential of behavioural signals (held in mass, and readily anonymizable, transactional datasets) to shed light on public health risks, such as COVID-19 (and underpin new forms of syndromic surveillance tools, providing capabilities for early-warning systems at scale; sustainably; and without reliance on self-reporting apps). 2. To uncover potentially hidden impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable and under-examined communities (e.g. BAME, areas of Food Poverty, Deprivation) 3. To demonstrate the importance of transparency, security and privacy-by-design in data linkage systems, through open frameworks connecting key stakeholders: health services, researchers, private-sector data holders, and individuals/communities themselves. We expect the programme's work to directly impact on practices within our partners in the form of NHS, ONS, Joint Biosecurity Centre and Boots Pharmacy.
11/03/2021