Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research

WONDER – (Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research)

Source: S. Economou

An easy-to-use, web-based system that makes the information resources of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available to public health professionals and the public at large. Its purposes are:

1. To promote information-driven decision making by placing timely, useful facts in the hands of public health practitioners and researchers, and
2. To provide the general public with access to specific and detailed information from CDC.

WONDER provides the following services:

• Communication: http://wonder.cdc.gov provides a single point of access to a wide variety of reports and numeric public health data. The web site is recognized world-wide by the public health community, and widely used in the curriculum of many schools of public health. About 25,000 persons access the web site each week (measured in distinct hosts).
• Data release: WONDER online databases provide data dissemination, and online data . CDC programs partner with WONDER to provide external partners and the public with access to their data, in compliance with the CDC data release policy. WONDER's partners include programs in NCHS, NCHSTP, NCCDHP, NIP, NCPHI, NIOSH and NCEH/ATSDR.
• Data access: WONDER manages the CDC Scientific Data archives, a collection of scientific datasets and documentation produced by CDC.
• Software: WONDER system software is available for use by public health programs and agencies. This public domain software is intended for open platform operation. The end user is a "thin" client (HTML and internet connectivity). The web application is developed in Java, XSL and XML and runs under the Tomcat application server on a web server, with connectivity to a data server. The data server must support standard SQL queries, and may use either flat or relational tables. Legacy data values are permissible, because the design supports the translation of values via the metadata tables.
• Web hosting: WONDER hosts web applications developed by other CDC agencies on the WONDER web site, and provides server support and Certification and Accreditation status. The Data2010 system is supported by WONDER's web hosting service.