Catalyzing Knowledge-Driven Discovery in Environmental Health Sciences through a Community-Driven Harmonized Language.

Ryan D. Cronk,Anne E. Thessen,Christopher G. Duncan,Stephanie D. Holmgren,Ruth M. Lunn,Kimberly C. Osborn,Richard K. Kwok,Charles P. Schmitt,Rebecca R. Boyles

doi:10.3390/ijerph18178985

Abstract

Harmonized language is critical for helping researchers to find data, collecting scientific data to facilitate comparison, and performing pooled and meta-analyses. Using standard terms to link data to knowledge systems facilitates knowledge-driven analysis, allows for the use of biomedical knowledge bases for scientific interpretation and hypothesis generation, and increasingly supports artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Due to the breadth of environmental health sciences (EHS) research and the continuous evolution in scientific methods, the gaps in standard terminologies, vocabularies, ontologies, and related tools hamper the capabilities to address large-scale, complex EHS research questions that require the integration of disparate data and knowledge sources. The results of prior workshops to advance a harmonized environmental health language demonstrate that future efforts should be sustained and grounded in scientific need. We describe a community initiative whose mission was to advance integrative environmental health sciences research via the development and adoption of a harmonized language. The products, outcomes, and recommendations developed and endorsed by this community are expected to enhance data collection and management efforts for NIEHS and the EHS community, making data more findable and interoperable. This initiative will provide a community of practice space to exchange information and expertise, be a coordination hub for identifying and prioritizing activities, and a collaboration platform for the development and adoption of semantic solutions. We encourage anyone interested in advancing this mission to engage in this community.

Highlights

Introduction conditions of the Creative CommonsThe use of a harmonized language to describe scientific methods and discoveries is well recognized as being critical for a variety of needs, including searching the literature, integrating data and knowledge, and conducting comparative analyses
We emphasize a more sustainable approach that leverages the existing governance structures and communication platforms of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) model [17] to address focused use cases that are relevant to the sharing and integration of environmental health sciences (EHS) data across heterogeneous sources and modalities [17]
We present representative challenge areas and recent advances, followed by efforts to lay the foundation for a sustainable EHS language community

Summary

Introduction conditions of the Creative Commons

The use of a harmonized language to describe scientific methods and discoveries is well recognized as being critical for a variety of needs, including searching the literature, integrating data and knowledge, and conducting comparative analyses. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 8985 of environmental health sciences research and practice, the use of a harmonized language spanning biomedical sub-disciplines and other fields (e.g., environment, climate, disaster, population health) is important. We emphasize a more sustainable approach that leverages the existing governance structures and communication platforms of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) model [17] to address focused use cases that are relevant to the sharing and integration of EHS data across heterogeneous sources and modalities [17]. These improvements address challenges that have hindered similar efforts in the past

Representative Challenge Areas

Recent Efforts

Proposed EHS Community Model

Proposed Community Organization

Use Cases

Anticipated Outcomes

Findings

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