The Pandemic Response Commons

Objectives:

A data commons is a software platform for managing, curating, analyzing, and sharing data with a community. the pandemic response commons (prc) is a data commons designed to provide a data platform for researchers studying an epidemic or pandemic.

Methods:

The prc was developed using the open source gen3 data platform and is based upon consortium, data, and platform agreements developed by the not-for-profit open commons consortium. a formal consortium of chicagoland area organizations was formed to develop and operate the prc.

Results:

The consortium developed a general prc and an instance of it for the chicagoland region called the chicagoland covid-19 commons. a gen3 data platform was set up and operated with policies, procedures, and controls for a nist sp 800-53 revision 4 moderate system. a consensus data model for the commons was developed, and a variety of datasets were curated, harmonized and ingested, including statistical summary data about covid cases, patient level clinical data, and sars-cov-2 viral variant data.

Discussion and conclusions:

Given the various legal and data agreements required to operate a data commons, a prc is designed to be in place and operating at a low level prior to the occurrence of an epidemic, with the activities increasing as required during an epidemic. a regional instance of a prc can also be part of a broader data ecosystem or data mesh consisting of multiple regional commons supporting pandemic response through sharing regional data.