The IDDO platform

The IDDO platform, based at the University of Oxford, is a health data repository providing an environment to collate, standardise and share clinical and observational data in line with FAIR principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. IDDO hosts data for reuse across a portfolio of diseases including malaria, neglected tropical diseases (visceral leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiases), and emerging infections (COVID-19 and Ebola). IDDO provides the operational tools and infrastructure to translate pooled and standardised individual patient data into evidence. The IDDO Data Access Committee (DAC) is an independent body, chaired by TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, hosted at WHO.

The IDDO DAC now consists of 43 members representing 26 countries (20 LMIC, 6 HIC) with expertise across clinical practice and research, education, ethics, bioinformatics, biostatistics and data management, with disease expertise to assess applications for malaria, Ebola, COVID-19, visceral leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiases.

IDDO DAC has helped to facilitate a significant number of global research collaborations involving reuse of data since 2018. Their independent feedback has further stimulated a constant evolution in the governance required at IDDO for the reuse of data in collaborative research using pooled and standardised datasets that can go further to address unmet health challenges and provide novel solutions for global health. Highlighting the importance of data reuse, the IDDO platform is enriching the research landscape with accessible tools and methods to better collect and analyse data to ultimately impact policy.