A new open-access article published in the Lancet, Public Health, explores the role of data and data publishing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The article asserts that public health data sharing was crucial to inform the response to the pandemic. However, the research found that the data published was less than optimal, hindering the overall pandemic response.
The report identifies seven best practices to optimise data for future publishing: collecting relevant data, making data comparable, documenting data, sharing data frequently and promptly, publishing data at a stable location, choosing reusable formats, and licensing others to reuse the data. The research finds that such measures are simple, low-cost, and readily implementable, with many nations already having implemented such measures during the pandemic. The findings are intended to be accessible and enable agencies to follow these best practices to enhance data sharing for future responses.