Epidata API (Other Diseases)

This is the home of Delphi’s epidemiological data API for tracking epidemics such as influenza, dengue, and norovirus. Note that our work on COVID-19 is described in the COVIDcast Epidata API documentation.

Table of Contents

  1. Epidata API (Other Diseases)
    1. Contributing
    2. Citing
    3. Data Licensing
  2. The API
    1. Specifying Epiweeks, Dates, and Lists
    2. Universal Parameters
    3. Source-Specific Parameters
      1. COVID-19 Data
      2. Influenza Data
      3. Dengue Data
      4. Norovirus Data
      5. Deprecated
  3. Example URLs
    1. FluView on 2015w01 (national)
    2. Wikipedia Access article “influenza” on 2020w01
  4. Code Samples
  5. Related Work

Contributing

If you are interested in contributing:

  • For development of the API itself, see the development guide.
  • To suggest changes, additions, or other ways to improve, open an issue describing your idea.

Citing

We hope that this API is useful to others outside of our group, especially for epidemiological and other scientific research. If you use this API and would like to cite it, we would gratefully recommend the following copy:

David C. Farrow, Logan C. Brooks, Aaron Rumack, Ryan J. Tibshirani, Roni Rosenfeld (2015). Delphi Epidata API. https://github.com/cmu-delphi/delphi-epidata

Data Licensing

Several datasets surfaced through this API are carefully curated mirrors of data acquired from various external parties. Such data is subject to its original licensing, where applicable.

Any data which is produced novelly by Delphi and is intentionally and openly surfaced by Delphi through this API is hereby licensed CC BY except where otherwise noted. Endpoints, as specified by the endpoint parameter, which are known to wholly or partially serve data under this license include:

  • covidcast
  • covidcast_meta
  • delphi
  • dengue_nowcast
  • dengue_sensors
  • meta*
  • nowcast
  • sensors

Creative Commons License

Please note that our endpoint parameters were previously referenced as source in our API. New users will now use the endpoint parameter when accessing our data. If you are a returning or continuous user you do not have to make any changes, as the parameter source still works as usual.

The API

The base URL is: https://api.delphi.cmu.edu/epidata/

Specifying Epiweeks, Dates, and Lists

Epiweeks use the U.S. definition. That is, the first epiweek each year is the week, starting on a Sunday, containing January 4. See this page for more information.

Formatting for epiweeks is YYYYWW and for dates is YYYYMMDD.

list parameters consist of a comma-separated list of individual values or, for numeric parameters, a hyphenated range of values. Examples include:

  • param=201530 (A single epiweek)
  • param=201401,201501,201601 (Several epiweeks)
  • param=200501-200552 (A range of epiweeks)
  • param=201440,201501-201510 (Several epiweeks, including a range)
  • param=20070101-20071231 (A range of dates)

Universal Parameters

The only universally required parameter is endpoint, which must be one of the supported source names listed below, e.g., fluview.

Source-Specific Parameters

The parameters available for each source are documented in each linked source-specific API page.

COVID-19 Data

Endpoint Name Description Restricted?
covidcast COVIDCast Delphi’s COVID-19 surveillance streams. no
covidcast_meta COVIDCast Metadata Metadata for Delphi’s COVID-19 surveillance streams. no
covid_hosp COVID-19 Hospitalization COVID-19 Reported Patient Impact and Hospital Capacity. no

Influenza Data

Endpoint Name Description Restricted?
cdc CDC Page Hits … yes
delphi Delphi’s Forecast … no
ecdc_ili ECDC ILI ECDC ILI data from the ECDC website. no
flusurv FluSurv FluSurv-NET data (flu hospitaliation rates) from CDC. no
fluview FluView Influenza-like illness (ILI) from U.S. Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet). no
fluview_meta FluView Metadata Summary data about fluview. no
fluview_clinical FluView Clinical … no
gft Google Flu Trends Estimate of influenza activity based on volume of certain search queries. Google has discontinued Flu Trends, and this is now a static endpoint. no
ght Google Health Trends Estimate of influenza activity based on volume of certain search queries. yes
kcdc_ili KCDC ILI KCDC ILI data from KCDC website. no
meta API Metadata Metadata for fluview, twitter, wiki, and delphi. no
nidss_flu NIDSS Flu Outpatient ILI from Taiwan’s National Infectious Disease Statistics System (NIDSS). no
nowcast ILI Nearby A nowcast of U.S. national, regional, and state-level (weighted) percent ILI, available seven days (regionally) or five days (state-level) before the first ILINet report for the corresponding week. no
quidel Quidel Data provided by Quidel Corp., which contains flu lab test results. yes
sensors Delphi’s Digital Surveillance Sensors … no
twitter Twitter Stream Estimate of influenza activity based on analysis of language used in tweets from HealthTweets. yes
wiki Wikipedia Access Logs Number of page visits for selected English, Influenza-related wikipedia articles. no

Dengue Data

Endpoint Name Description Restricted?
dengue_nowcast Delphi’s Dengue Nowcast … …
dengue_sensors Delphi’s Dengue Digital Surveillance Sensors … …
nidss_dengue NIDSS Dengue Counts of confirmed dengue cases from Taiwan’s NIDSS. no
paho_dengue PAHO Dengue … …

Norovirus Data

Endpoint Name Description Restricted?
meta_norostat NoroSTAT Metadata … …
norostat NoroSTAT Suspected and confirmed norovirus outbreaks reported by state health departments to the CDC. …

Deprecated

Example URLs

FluView on 2015w01 (national)

https://api.delphi.cmu.edu/epidata/fluview/?regions=nat&epiweeks=201501

{
  "result": 1,
  "epidata": [
    {
      "release_date": "2017-10-24",
      "region": "nat",
      "issue": 201740,
      "epiweek": 201501,
      "lag": 143,
      "num_ili": 31483,
      "num_patients": 771835,
      "num_providers": 1958,
      "num_age_0": 7160,
      "num_age_1": 9589,
      "num_age_2": null,
      "num_age_3": 8072,
      "num_age_4": 3614,
      "num_age_5": 3048,
      "wili": 4.21374,
      "ili": 4.07898
    }
  ],
  "message": "success"
}

Wikipedia Access article “influenza” on 2020w01

https://api.delphi.cmu.edu/epidata/wiki/?language=en&articles=influenza&epiweeks=202001

{
  "result": 1,
  "epidata": [
    {
      "article": "influenza",
      "count": 6516,
      "total": 663604044,
      "hour": -1,
      "epiweek": 202001,
      "value": 9.81910834
    }
  ],
  "message": "success"
}

Code Samples

To access our Epidata API, visit our Epidata API Client Libraries). For anyone looking for COVIDCast data in particular, please visit our purpose-built COVIDCast Libraries instead.

Related Work

Please visit our related works page for more information.

Table of contents