The Coronavirus (COVID-19) dashboard was a ground-breaking instrument that demonstrated the energy of public urge for food for knowledge and supplied native and nationwide decision-makers with essential info that helped to tell response.

From Thursday 21 December will probably be absolutely changed by the UKHSA data dashboard, which has been out there alongside it since its launch in September 2023. The brand new dashboard will proceed to spotlight precedence knowledge and traits with an preliminary concentrate on respiratory viruses – together with COVID-19 – however its metrics can be continuously assessed and up to date with the intention to broaden to mirror the total breadth of UKHSA’s remit.

Constructing on the robust foundations of its predecessor, the brand new public dashboard will proceed to fulfill the wants of a number of customers by a curated and accessible public interface, while persevering with to supply a extra granular knowledge obtain performance by APIs for skilled customers, resembling lecturers, media, and business. Accessibility, knowledge high quality assurance, considerate metric choice, and intensive consumer analysis have been instrumental in creating this new dashboard.

On this weblog publish, we are going to deal with a few of the commonest questions we have had from the general public concerning the UKHSA knowledge dashboard and the way we are going to proceed to develop it.

What’s staying the identical?

The dashboard will permit us to share related and helpful knowledge, traits and data, in a well timed, user-centred and clear approach. It is going to meet the wants of various kinds of customers, by an accessible, user-friendly front-end design, with knowledge obtain performance by utility programming interfaces (APIs) for skilled customers, resembling lecturers, media, and business.

What’s new?

The dashboard has an expanded focus, and can embrace knowledge on a number of public well being threats, initially opening up knowledge on respiratory viruses aside from COVID-19.

The dashboard can even proceed to make sure COVID-19 knowledge is offered in an accessible format, whereas contributing and committing to the organisation’s winter preparedness effort.

The UKHSA dashboard builds on learnings from the COVID-19 dashboard however goals to boost elements like accessibility, knowledge high quality, metrics, and consumer expertise. By way of consumer testing, we’ve labored to current knowledge in a easy, inclusive and helpful approach.

The COVID-19 dashboard was designed to be used within the peak of a worldwide pandemic, whereas the brand new dashboard is designed and constructed for longevity – reflecting the context of a post-pandemic world with extra curated metrics and the capability to construct in new public well being matters over time. The kind of knowledge which is now reported has modified a few of the knowledge is not collected, and a few of the metrics are much less helpful than they had been throughout the pandemic and may very well be deceptive.

Deciding on significant metrics

Person testing and analysis closely guided the construct of the UKHSA knowledge dashboard. Person perception is significant when contemplating how our customers will work together with the dashboard and the place they may discover any metrics significantly complicated and even deceptive.

When deciding which metrics ought to and shouldn’t be on the UKHSA knowledge dashboard, analysts within the Knowledge Product Improvement crew (DPD) thought of some key questions:

Is the metric nonetheless related?

As a crew, we reviewed all of the metrics and thought of the wants of all of our various kinds of customers, together with most people, public well being professionals, media, journalists and lecturers.

These metrics which nonetheless present profit within the context of Residing with COVID steerage, the place all authorized home restrictions have been lifted, stay.

Does the information characterize the most recent image?

For the UKHSA knowledge dashboard, we are going to solely be exhibiting knowledge by occasion date – when one thing occurred reasonably than when it was reported.

Knowledge by publication date, the date by which the metric was reported, was helpful on the peak of the pandemic alongside occasion date, because it confirmed we had been presenting the most recent knowledge because it was reported.

However now we’re not in a pandemic state, knowledge by occasion date is extra consultant of the well being state of affairs: for instance, the publication date may very well be yesterday, however the newest occasion date inside that knowledge may very well be 2 weeks in the past.

Does the information have longevity?

We need to be sure that the UKHSA knowledge dashboard has longevity and any metric, whether or not taken ahead from the earlier dashboard or newly out there, is constantly out there now and sooner or later.

Throughout our evaluation of the metrics, we thought of if there have been any indications the information won’t be out there sooner or later. If there have been considerations, we might look into the chance of this occurring and decide on whether or not to incorporate the metric.

When deciding on whether or not a brand new matter can be added to the dashboard, whether or not that’s an present publication or the most recent knowledge related to an incident, we are going to assess these matters on standards which consider public well being significance and curiosity and the reliability, availability and high quality of the information.

We’ll nonetheless be reporting COVID-19 instances on the UKHSA knowledge dashboard, together with check positivity – which is the share of complete variety of reported checks which might be constructive, and isn’t the share of the inhabitants of who presently have COVID-19 – which brings reporting of testing for COVID-19 in step with present reporting for different respiratory sicknesses resembling flu.

Involving Customers All through

Suggestions from customers has pushed the design and construct decisions the entire crew has made when constructing the UKHSA knowledge dashboard. By listening and responding to consumer suggestions and focus teams, we’ve been higher in a position to perceive consumer wants, motivations and ache factors and make adjustments to providers which mirror sensible each day use.

A public survey gathered utilization suggestions from over 5,000 respondents, alongside consumer classes with media journalists, native authority employees, epidemiologists, knowledge scientists, area people volunteers and those that aren’t customers of the dashboard. Serving to us to generate personas based mostly on use wants had been developed protecting the spectrum from informal to knowledgeable customers.

By specializing in accessibility, knowledge high quality, purposeful metrics, and user-centric design, the UKHSA dashboard goals to be a useful public well being knowledge useful resource.

What’s subsequent?

We can be persevering with to develop the UKHSA knowledge dashboard within the coming months, with new options and performance being added commonly.  You possibly can examine upcoming adjustments to the dashboard here.  Over time, we additionally plan so as to add info and extra well being threats, for instance different viruses and illnesses.

Our intention is to supply a service that helps our customers discover the knowledge that they want, and we welcome any suggestions or options by our feedback form.