Editor's Rant: Communicating the data and about the data...

It is pretty damn hard work trying to get hold of data on virus outbreaks around the world. 

When it is, it may be available in unfriendly formats. It may not be made public at all. When it is available, it is often slow to appear or it may have random reporting gaps, or be partially incomplete. The style of the released data can change overnight as well, sometimes going from detail to summary.

So why bother about trying to get hold of these numbers at all? It's not like I work in the field. Well, that is a question I'm increasingly asking myself of late too. My personal reason has been because I think there need to be more voices in the vacuum between the numbers being reported and the often dry public health reports. I think scientists, even if they are not lifetime experts on a given virus or outbreak, still have much to offer when they come out from behind their manuscripts and apply their skills to interpreting what's happening. Well, many do anyway. And they should do it more. Now, perhaps more than ever, science needs steer away from its cold, dense and boring niche writing to a chattier, more helpful and community-based style of engagement. It astonishes me how often the public's interpretation of outbreak numbers must come from the media or from hobbyists, or even professionals who work in other areas and give of their own time to help explain something to us in their personal time. Helpful and engaging information and better access should come from the source of the data.

So it becomes really annoying (you would have to know me quite well to know how many times I just rewrote those words) when data are given out for public use that are a total mess...and there is not one tiny mote of explanation for it. I called it appalling on Twitter tonight. And at other times there are no explanations for why there are gaps, why data are delayed, why the format may have changed today compared to last week, why a line list is missing a case, using a new and totally independent numbering scheme or suddenly reshuffled, why there is no news about a new outbreak. No word. No contact. No-one taking the lead. No...communication.

I have met a lot of people since I have been blogging who, in various ways, have put in their own personal time to help out bigPublicHealth, to help take up the slack in communicating to the media and to the public. It is hard to quantify the impact of that combined help-but I can assure you that it reaches far and wide and is not insignificant. One would think that it should be easier to provide this help when one is willing to make use of their own time and use their own resources, or that those people should be shown enough respect to be able to simply find and apply reliable raw data so they can help out. But one would be an idiot. I very clearly remember a time when I could send a public Tweet to WHO's Head of Public Relations, Gregory Haertl, and get an informed reply. Those days have passed. I remember there being an #AskEbola channel on Twitter that gave answers. That engagement is just not there anymore. I'm sure its funding and resources and blah blah...but not as sure as I could be if that were spoken about in public. Communication. Someone needs to step up on this. As the quotes above allude to, 2015 is not 2014. And one of those differences is that everyone wants timely and comprehensive information they can rely on during times of outbreak. This hasn't been discusses enough but it should be.