International Journal of Population Data Science (Nov 2019)

The Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS)

  • Bethania de Araujo Almeida,
  • Mauricio Lima Barreto,
  • Maria Yuri Ichihara,
  • Marcos Ennes Barreto,
  • Liliana Cabral,
  • Rosemeire Fiaccone,
  • Roberto P Carreiro,
  • Carlos Teles,
  • Robespierre Pita,
  • Gerson Penna,
  • Manoel Barral-Netto,
  • M. Sanni Ali,
  • George Barbosa,
  • Spiros Denaxas,
  • Laura Rodrigues,
  • Liam Smeeth

DOI
https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v4i2.1140
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 2

Abstract

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The Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS) was created in 2016 in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil). This paper aims to present a profile of CIDACS, including its current databases. CIDACS aims to conduct interdisciplinary studies and research, develop new scientific methodology and promote professional training using linked large-scale databases and high-performance computational resources in a secure environment. Administrative data is at the core of the activities conducted by CIDACS. The advantages of administrative data include significantly larger sample sizes, an inherent longitudinal structure and high-quality information. The center’s research projects are primarily focused on enhancing the understanding surrounding the impact of social protection policies (e.g., public cash-transfer and housing programs) on health outcomes in low-income populations throughout Brazil. CIDACS’ primary data source is citizens who register with the Cadastro Único program, which encompasses individuals eligible to receive benefits from over 20 governmental social programs. CIDACS has two separate environments for data handling: 1) Data Production Center, a secure room housing the computational infrastructure for ingesting, storing, cleaning, processing and linking original databases, as well as extracting research-ready datasets and 2) Data Analysis Environment, a computational infrastructure based on data safe haven principles, which allows researchers to access and process requested datasets. Brazil has a large public health community that uses national health and social databases for research programs, and the linkage of different databases has been a widely employed practice in the country. CIDACS is the result of efforts by researchers, policymakers and public health officials to use and improve the quality of Brazilian health databases. CIDACS is expected to be an important resource for researchers and policymakers interested in improving the evidence base in different aspects of health, as well as with regard to the social determinants of health and the effects of social and environmental policies on health in general.

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