Finding data of interest

The Epidata API includes numerous data streams – medical claims data, cases and deaths, mobility, and many others – covering different geographic regions. This can make it a challenge to find the data stream that you are most interested in. This page will provide some advice on how to locate donate that may be useful to you.

Using the Delphi Epidata API documentation

The Delphi Epidata API documentation lists all the available data sources and signals for COVID-19 and for other diseases. The site also includes a search tool if you have a keyword (e.g. “Taiwan”) in mind. Generally, any endpoint listed in the Delphi Epidata API has an associated function in this client where its API endpoint name is prefixed with either pub_ or pvt_, e.g. pub_covidcast or pvt_twitter.

Epidata data sources

The parameters available for each source data are documented in each linked source-specific API page. The epidatpy client will also expect certain fields, depending on the endpoint, though the Delphi Epidata API documentation will contain more information about the accepted ranges of values for each field.

A dynamically generated list of all available data sources can be obtained by using the built-in available_endpoints():

from IPython.display import HTML

from epidatpy import available_endpoints

table = available_endpoints()
HTML(table.to_html(index=False))

Endpoint	Description
pub_covid_hosp_facility	Fetch COVID hospitalization data for specific facilities.
pub_covid_hosp_facility_lookup	Lookup COVID hospitalization facility identifiers.
pub_covid_hosp_state_timeseries	Fetch COVID hospitalization data.
pub_covidcast	Fetch Delphi's COVID-19 Surveillance Streams
pub_covidcast_meta	Fetch COVIDcast surveillance stream metadata.
pub_delphi	Fetch Delphi's forecast.
pub_dengue_nowcast	Fetch Delphi's dengue nowcast.
pub_ecdc_ili	Fetch ECDC ILI data.
pub_flusurv	Fetch FluSurv data.
pub_fluview	None
pub_fluview_clinical	Fetch FluView clinical data.
pub_fluview_meta	None
pub_gft	Fetch Google Flu Trends data.
pub_kcdc_ili	Fetch KCDC ILI data.
pub_meta	Fetch API metadata.
pub_nidss_dengue	Fetch NIDSS dengue data.
pub_nidss_flu	Fetch NIDSS flu data.
pub_nowcast	Fetch Delphi's wILI nowcast.
pub_paho_dengue	Fetch PAHO Dengue data.
pub_wiki	Fetch Wikipedia access data.
pvt_cdc	Fetch CDC page hits.
pvt_dengue_sensors	Fetch Delphi's digital surveillance sensors.
pvt_ght	Fetch Google Health Trends data.
pvt_meta_norostat	Fetch NoroSTAT metadata.
pvt_norostat	Fetch NoroSTAT data (point data, no min/max).
pvt_quidel	Fetch Quidel data.
pvt_sensors	Fetch Delphi's digital surveillance sensors.
pvt_twitter	Fetch HealthTweets data.

Covidcast source and signal metadata

The CovidcastEpidata class provides a way to access information about the data in the pub_covidcast endpoint directly from within the client. The cell below demonstrates how to access this metadata by using source_df property, which returns a Pandas DataFrame of metadata describing all data streams publically accessible from the COVIDcast endpoint of the Delphi Epidata API. This mirrors the information found in the COVIDcast signals endpoint.

from epidatpy import CovidcastEpidata

epidata = CovidcastEpidata()
epidata.source_df

	source	name	description	reference_signal	license	dua	signals
0	chng	Change Healthcare	Change Healthcare is a healthcare technology c...	smoothed_outpatient_cli	CC BY-NC	https://cmu.box.com/s/cto4to822zecr3oyq1kkk9xm...	smoothed_outpatient_cli,smoothed_adj_outpatien...
1	covid-act-now	Covid Act Now (CAN)	COVID Act Now (CAN) tracks COVID-19 testing st...	pcr_specimen_total_tests	CC BY-NC	None	pcr_specimen_positivity_rate,pcr_specimen_tota...
2	doctor-visits	Doctor Visits From Claims	Information about outpatient visits, provided ...	smoothed_cli	CC BY	https://cmu.box.com/s/l2tz6kmiws6jyty2azwb43po...	smoothed_cli,smoothed_adj_cli
3	fb-survey	Delphi US COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey	We conduct the Delphi US COVID-19 Trends and I...	smoothed_cli	CC BY	https://cmu.box.com/s/qfxplcdrcn9retfzx4zniyug...	raw_wcli,raw_cli,smoothed_cli,smoothed_wcli,ra...
4	google-symptoms	Google Symptoms Search Trends	Google's [COVID-19 Search Trends symptoms data...	s05_smoothed_search	To download or use the data, you must agree to...	None	ageusia_raw_search,ageusia_smoothed_search,ano...
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
13	indicator-combination-nmf	Statistical Combination (NMF)	This source provides signals which are statist...	nmf_day_doc_fbs_ght	CC BY	None	nmf_day_doc_fbc_fbs_ght,nmf_day_doc_fbs_ght
14	safegraph-daily	SafeGraph (Daily)	[SafeGraph](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/so...	completely_home_prop	CC BY	https://cmu.box.com/s/m0p1wpet4vuvey7od83n70h0...	completely_home_prop,completely_home_prop_7dav...
15	nchs-mortality	NCHS Mortality Data	This data source of national provisional death...	deaths_allcause_incidence_num	[NCHS Data Use Agreement](https://www.cdc.gov/...	None	deaths_allcause_incidence_num,deaths_allcause_...
16	dsew-cpr	COVID-19 Community Profile Report	This data source is based on the daily report ...	confirmed_admissions_covid_1d_7dav	[Public Domain US Government](https://www.usa....	None	booster_doses_admin_7dav,confirmed_admissions_...
17	nssp	National Syndromic Surveillance Program	The National Syndromic Surveillance Program (N...	pct_ed_visits_covid	[Public Domain US Government](https://www.usa....	None	pct_ed_visits_covid,pct_ed_visits_influenza,pc...

18 rows × 7 columns

This DataFrame contains the following columns:

• source - API-internal source name.

• name - Human-readable source name.

• description - Description of the signal.

• reference_signal - Geographic level for which this signal is available, such as county, state, msa, hss, hrr, or nation. Most signals are available at multiple geographic levels and will hence be listed in multiple rows with their own metadata.

• license - The license.

• dua - Link to the Data Use Agreement.

• signals - List of signals available from this data source.

The signal_df DataFrame can also be used to obtain information about the signals that are available - for example, what time range they are available for, and when they have been updated.

epidata.signal_df

	source	signal	name	active	short_description	description	time_type	time_label	value_label	format	category	high_values_are	is_smoothed	is_weighted	is_cumulative	has_stderr	has_sample_size	geo_types
0	chng	smoothed_outpatient_cli	COVID-Related Doctor Visits	False	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	day	Date	Value	raw	early	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
1	chng	smoothed_adj_outpatient_cli	COVID-Related Doctor Visits (Day-adjusted)	False	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	day	Date	Value	raw	early	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
2	chng	smoothed_outpatient_covid	COVID-Confirmed Doctor Visits	False	COVID-Confirmed Doctor Visits	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	day	Date	Value	raw	early	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
3	chng	smoothed_adj_outpatient_covid	COVID-Confirmed Doctor Visits (Day-adjusted)	False	COVID-Confirmed Doctor Visits	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	day	Date	Value	raw	early	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
4	chng	smoothed_outpatient_flu	Influenza-Confirmed Doctor Visits	False	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	Estimated percentage of outpatient doctor visi...	day	Day	Value	raw	early	bad	True	False	False	None	None	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
446	nssp	pct_ed_visits_combined	Emergency Department Visits for COVID, Influen...	True	Percent of ED visits that had a discharge diag...	Percent of ED visits that had a discharge diag...	week	Week	Percentage	percent	other	bad	False	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
447	nssp	smoothed_pct_ed_visits_covid	COVID Emergency Department Visits (Percent of ...	True	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	week	Week	Percentage	percent	other	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
448	nssp	smoothed_pct_ed_visits_influenza	Influenza Emergency Department Visits (Percent...	True	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	week	Week	Percentage	percent	other	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
449	nssp	smoothed_pct_ed_visits_rsv	RSV Emergency Department Visits (Percent of to...	True	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	week	Week	Percentage	percent	other	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state
450	nssp	smoothed_pct_ed_visits_combined	Emergency Department Visits for COVID, Influen...	True	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	3-week moving average of percent of ED visits ...	week	Week	Percentage	percent	other	bad	True	False	False	False	False	county,hhs,hrr,msa,nation,state

451 rows × 18 columns

This DataFrame contains one row each available signal, with the following columns:

• source - Data source name.

• signal - API-internal signal name.

• name - Human-readable signal name.

• active - Whether the signal is currently not updated or not. Signals may be inactive because the sources have become unavailable, other sources have replaced them, or additional work is required for us to continue updating them.

• short_description - Brief description of the signal.

• description - Full description of the signal.

• geo_types - Spatial resolution of the signal (e.g., county, hrr, msa, dma, state). More detail about all geo_types is given in the geographic coding documentation.

• time_type - Temporal resolution of the signal (e.g., day, week; see date coding details).

• time_label - The time label (“Date”, “Week”).

• value_label - The value label (“Value”, “Percentage”, “Visits”, “Visits per 100,000 people”).

• format - The value format (“per100k”, “percent”, “fraction”, “count”, “raw”).

• category - The signal category (“early”, “public”, “late”, “other”).

• high_values_are- What the higher value of signal indicates (“good”, “bad”, “neutral”).

• is_smoothed - Whether the signal is smoothed.

• is_weighted - Whether the signal is weighted.

• is_cumulative - Whether the signal is cumulative.

• has_stderr - Whether the signal has stderr statistic.

• has_sample_size - Whether the signal has sample_size statistic.

• geo_types - Geographical levels for which this signal is available.