title: Development of a browser application to foster research on linking climate and health datasets: Challenges and opportunities.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Improved data linkages between diverse environment and health datasets have the potential to provide new insights into the health impacts of environmental exposures, including complex climate change processes. Initiatives that link and explore big data in the environment and health arenas are now being established.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To encourage advances in this nascent field, this article documents the development of a web browser application to facilitate such future research, the challenges encountered to date, and how they were addressed.
  
  
  METHODS
  A 'storyboard approach' was used to aid the initial design and development of the application. The application followed a 3-tier architecture: a spatial database server for storing and querying data, server-side code for processing and running models, and client-side browser code for user interaction and for displaying data and results. The browser was validated by reproducing previously published results from a regression analysis of time-series datasets of daily mortality, air pollution and temperature in London.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data visualisation and analysis options of the application are presented. The main factors that shaped the development of the browser were: accessibility, open-source software, flexibility, efficiency, user-friendliness, licensing restrictions and data confidentiality, visualisation limitations, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Creating dedicated data and analysis resources, such as the one described here, will become an increasingly vital step in improving understanding of the complex interconnections between the environment and human health and wellbeing, whilst still ensuring appropriate confidentiality safeguards. The issues raised in this paper can inform the future development of similar tools by other researchers working in this field.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social & Environmental Health Research, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK. Electronic address: Shakoor.hajat@lshtm.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Shakoor
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hajat
authors.affiliation: European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, Cornwall, UK.
authors.forename: Ceri
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Whitmore
authors.affiliation: Met Office, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sarran
authors.affiliation: Department of Social & Environmental Health Research, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Haines
authors.affiliation: Met Office, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Golding
authors.affiliation: European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, Cornwall, UK.
authors.forename: Harriet
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gordon-Brown
authors.affiliation: Public Health England, London, UK.
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kessel
authors.affiliation: European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, Cornwall, UK.
authors.forename: Lora E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Fleming
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution; D057231:Climate Change; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008131:London; D009026:Mortality; D012106:Research; D012984:Software
keywords: Big data; Browser application; Climate change; Environment; Human health; Time-series regression