Use of Standard Vocabulary in the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network

Introduction

 The use of standard vocabulary greatly enhances information searching, retrieval and sharing by facilitating semantic interoperability of the information in systems. The Tracking Network will use standard vocabulary to describe tracking data concepts, which will facilitate more efficient data searches on the Tracking Network.

 Methods

 We worked with vocabulary experts and Tracking content experts to identify Tracking data concepts and concept codes from the Whitehouse E-Gov initiative - Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) code systems, for each Tracking content area. We extracted the synonyms to these concepts from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). Other keywords that are not standard vocabulary and that users may use to search for data on the Tracking Network were identified. We mapped the synonyms from UMLS and the keywords to the Tracking concepts. 

 Results

 The result is an implementation design that will allow for more efficient and precise data searches to take place on the Tracking Network.  This design will allow a user data search using a Tracking data concept to return metadata that lists these concepts in the keywords metadata element. Similarly, a user data search using terms identified as a synonym or keyword, will return metadata with the Tracking data concept that is mapped to the synonym or keyword search term.

 Conclusion

 The use of standard vocabulary will enhance semantic interoperability of the Tracking Network and other information systems.  The use of standard vocabulary will therefore greatly enhance data searches on the Tracking Network.