Demonstrating an approach for evaluating synthetic geospatial and temporal epidemiologic data utility: Results from analyzing >1.8 million SARS-CoV-2 tests in the United States National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C).

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To evaluate whether synthetic data derived from a national COVID-19 data set could be used for geospatial and temporal epidemic analyses.

Materials and methods

Using an original data set (n=1,854,968 SARS-CoV-2 tests) and its synthetic derivative, we compared key indicators of COVID-19 community spread through analysis of aggregate and zip-code level epidemic curves, patient characteristics and outcomes, distribution of tests by zip code, and indicator counts stratified by month and zip code. Similarity between the data was statistically and qualitatively evaluated.

Results

In general, synthetic data closely matched original data for epidemic curves, patient characteristics, and outcomes. Synthetic data suppressed labels of zip codes with few total tests (me

SUBMITTER: Thomas JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8282114 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature