June 29 09:00 to July 24 23:59
- Solutions will turn data into actionable information.
- Developing unique and novel ways of communicating risk-based COVID-19 data for environmental solutions.
- Considering the town of Bedford, UK and the surrounding area.
Our final Hackathon challenge will focus on developing unique and novel ways of communicating COVID-19 data, considering how to turn data into actionable information. It will require consideration of problem owners in how we can improve the communication of risk.
In brief, we will consider the town of Bedford, UK (see https://osm.org/go/eu6N4x?relation=158396) and surrounding region. Here, we challenge you to develop an app / modelling approach plus (interactive) visualisation that could be used to warn a member of the public where they are moving into an area having a high COVID-19 transmission rate, or an area posing greater personal risk.
As lockdown is relaxed, and the social exclusion 2m distance may become 1m, tools are needed to help the public anticipate and understand personal risk. A ‘Traffic lights symbol’ approach for example would be something understood intuitively by most people.
The lockdown period has presented us all with many challenges as we seek to continue our lives. There has been much interest in how to convey levels of risk and uncertainty to the public as information becomes available. NERC have a campaign to explore ‘Healthy places: Healthy people’, and we want to use this last hackathon to tease out what this could mean in terms of portraying regional, local and even personal levels of risk.
We are therefore seeking entrants to develop and explore interactive means of reporting, graphing, mapping and visualising the changing patterns of risk across the country. To do this we take a case study in Bedfordshire.
Perhaps the information could be presented in a map/geographical form? Alternatively perhaps information can relate to the sorts of activities and locations that could be planned….
Much of the data available can be hard for the public to interpret, and great skill is needed to synthesise the various data available and to collate it into easily understood facts and figures. There is scope then for computer tools to help inform the public. Approaches such as these, using multiple indicators have already been successfully deployed in other countries, as well as the UK.
In France, the following portal was developed: https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/soins-et-maladies/maladies/maladies-infectieuses/coronavirus/etat-des-lieux-et-actualites/article/indicateurs-de-l-activite-epidemique
This tool uses the following indicators: (1) Circulation active du virus; (2) Tension hospitalière sur les capacités en reanimation; (3) Taux de couverture des besoins en test estimés au 11 mai.
In Holland, the Dutch have developed the following portal: https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/covid-19/initiatives/dutch-covid-19-dashboard
This tool uses the following indicators: (1) cumulative number of people tested positive for COVID-19 as well as the daily increase; (2) cumulative number of people admitted to the hospital with COVID-19; (3) cumulative number of people deceased.
In the UK, the Office for National Statistics, ONS have recently released a dataset revealing ‘Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and deprivation’,
This data was used to generate a simple interactive statistical map of deaths involving COVID-19:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19interactivemap/2020-06-12. The map presented has no risk factors, but presents a recent statistical summary. Other sources of data can be hard to track down, but there are many teams seeking to collate and share data for example on infection rates in the UK (see e.g. https://github.com/tomwhite/covid-19-uk-data).
However, as lockdown permits, people have derived great benefits to their mental health and wellbeing just from being outdoors and enjoying the green environment, as one recent study reports, and if one is feeling stressed about Covid-19, the best thing to do is go for a walk according to the report https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/wellbeing/coronavirus-latest-anxious-adults-walking-helped-cope-lockdown-453400. There is also plenty of gridded surface meteorological data available to try and understand how people might behave or respond as the weather changes, for example see https://covid19-response.informaticslab.co.uk/hub/login. Many other data sources are outlined at https://digitalenvironment.org/home/covid-19-digital-sprint-hackathons/covid-19-hackathons-data-resources/.
Conveying risk is a multifaceted challenge, with many factors involved. Simple is best where possible for communication of this complexity. So this becomes a good challenge for our Hackathon. We do recognise that developing user interfaces and communication tools is complex, and that is why this challenge is assigned over four weeks unlike the earlier Hackathons. This challenge therefore concludes on July 24th. (Note if you need less time, fine – just ensure you are registered before the end date).
Following the completion of the fourth Hackathon, ‘Visualising Risk’, the judging panel awarded the following teams the top two places in the event.
- First place: Team Visigoths
- Second place: Team Parks in the Pandemic
Many thanks to all the teams who took part in this event. The results of all the excellent entries made are put online as an inspiration to further Digital Environment outputs.
These three teams were joined by a set of other fantastic entries. To see all the materials entered, please visit our COVID-19 Digital Sprint Github.