Abstract
Background: The use of linked data in the Semantic Web is a promising approach to add value to nutrition research. An ontology, which defines the logical relationships between well-defined taxonomic terms, enables linking and harmonizing research output. To enable the description of domain-specific output in nutritional epidemiology, we propose the Ontology for Nutritional Epidemiology (ONE) according to authoritative guidance for nutritional epidemiology. Methods: Firstly, a scoping review was conducted to identify existing ontology terms for reuse in ONE. Secondly, existing data standards and reporting guidelines for nutritional epidemiology were converted into an ontology. The terms used in the standards were summarized and listed separately in a taxonomic hierarchy. Thirdly, the ontologies of the nutritional epidemiologic standards, reporting guidelines, and the core concepts were gathered in ONE. Three case studies were included to illustrate potential applications: (i) annotation of existing manuscripts and data, (ii) ontology-based inference, and (iii) estimation of reporting completeness in a sample of nine manuscripts. Results: Ontologies for “food and nutrition” (n = 37), “disease and specific population” (n = 100), “data description” (n = 21), “research description” (n = 35), and “supplementary (meta) data description” (n = 44) were reviewed and listed. ONE consists of 339 classes: 79 new classes to describe data and 24 new classes to describe the content of manuscripts. Conclusion: ONE is a resource to automate data integration, searching, and browsing, and can be used to assess reporting completeness in nutritional epidemiology.
Highlights
Nutritional epidemiology provides evidence regarding the effects of human diets on health [1].most evidence is produced by short-term randomized trials or observational studies with small effect sizes [2]
We present the Ontology for Nutritional Epidemiology (ONE), as well as case studies to illustrate potential applications
ONE was developed by converting paper-based standards [4,23,24] into an ontology representation, including a separate taxonomic hierarchy of specific nutritional epidemiologic terms
Summary
Nutritional epidemiology provides evidence regarding the effects of human diets on health [1].most evidence is produced by short-term randomized trials or observational studies with small effect sizes [2]. Due to the various descriptions of data and research output in nutritional epidemiology, retrieval and use of shared data is challenging. Reporting guidelines describe essential information for manuscripts and are potentially useful to standardize the description of research output [4]. The use of linked data in the Semantic Web is a promising approach to add value to nutrition research. An ontology, which defines the logical relationships between well-defined taxonomic terms, enables linking and harmonizing research output. Existing data standards and reporting guidelines for nutritional epidemiology were converted into an ontology. The ontologies of the nutritional epidemiologic standards, reporting guidelines, and the core concepts were gathered in ONE. Three case studies were included to illustrate potential applications: (i) annotation of existing manuscripts and data, (ii) ontology-based inference, and (iii) estimation of reporting completeness in a sample of nine manuscripts.
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