The Project

Objectives

PHIRI for COVID-19 has the following objectives:

1. To provide a Health Information portal for COVID-19 with FAIR catalogues on health and health care data for structured information exchange across European countries. It facilitates access to and use of  COVID-19 relevant population health (health status and determinants of health) and care data provided by EU countries’ public health bodies represented in the PHIRI applicant consortium. It provides the services and tools necessary for researchers to link different data sources and to use Pan-European data in a GDPR compliant, federated way.
2. To provide structured exchange between countries on COVID-19 best practices and expertise. PHIRI shares public health and clinical management information and methodologies identified at national and international level. It allows researchers to provide relevant and evidence based information ready for use in research, and decision-making processes by citizens, clinicians, public health practitioners and policy makers.
3. To promote interoperability and tackle health information inequalities. PHIRI supports researchers and public health bodies to research queries related to COVID-19 in FAIR and ELSI compliant manners. It provides capacity building for management of COVID-19 relevant population health and healthcare data. 

Structure

PHIRI is structured in 9 Work Packages (WPs):

• WP 1 focus on the coordination and management of the day-to day scientific, administrative and financial aspects of the project.
• WP 2 focus on the establishment and implementation of effective communication channels within and outside PHIRI.
• WP 3 is responsible for the engagement of key stakeholders at national and international level.
• WP 4 aims to build the Health Information portal to facilitate access to health and health care data for COVID-19 between EU countries.
• WP 5 focus on supporting European countries in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on population wellbeing and health, morbidity and mortality using a multidisciplinary approach.
• WP 6 aims to conduct research through use cases of immediate relevance for public health policies and management of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to facilitate further research by making scalable, reproducible methods available within PHIRI.
• WP 7 aims to create and validate a federated research infrastructure that overcomes data reuse & data sharing hindrances for rapid policy relevant research response to the evolving pandemic.
• WP 8 aims to establish a sustainable infrastructure to support rapid exchange of information and expertise between actors from competent authorities and researchers in the joint effort to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
• WP 9 aims to gain insights in possible future health impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak, by developing scenarios for MS and associated countries’ national situation.

Methodology

PHIRI’s overall methodology is based on the concept developed in the past five year by European countries through BRIDGE Health and InfAct for a research infrastructure on population health. It builds on 4 main services: 

1. A Health Information portal: The foundation and main service of PHIRI is the COVID-19 FAIR data catalogue on population health and health care data. It facilitates access to and use of European data for research on the health of populations and on health care systems. The rollout and content development is carried out in WP4 Health Information portal for COVID-19 with the support of all the other WPs. The ICT support is provided in the WP2 Communication and portal development (WP2). WP7 Building a federated research infrastructure develops the tools to allow real time federated access. Additionally, rapid response to research questions and exchange of (best) practices are facilitated through the portal by WP8 Rapid Exchange Forum.
2. Investing in innovation in health information development for population health research: PHIRI supports health researchers to use Pan-European data in a federated way developed by WP7 Building a federated research infrastructure for a rapid policy response, to link different data sources and to make their research FAIR and ELSI compliant (WP 2, 4, 6, 7). Additionally, WP5 Research methodologies to assess the impact of COVID-19, more in depth on a specific topic WP6 Research use cases measuring the impact of COVID-19 on population health and WP9 Foresight: Modelling and Scenarios look at methodologies used in EU countries to monitor the wider impacts of COVID-19. These will then feed into the Health Information portal (WP4).
3. Providing capacity building to promote interoperability and tackle health information inequalities: PHIRI provides support for management of population health and healthcare COVID-19 data starting from the phase of designing data collections to analysis, reporting and preservation. Training of the health research community involves both the data producers and data users and strengthens skills to address the COVID-19 crises from a research perspective. Capacity building is a transversal activity throughout the proposal (WP 3.3, 4.4, 5.3, 7.3, 8.5, 9.2).
4. Assisting the health research community in developing methods for knowledge translation research: PHIRI supports researchers in methodologies (WP5, 6) to provide relevant and evidence based data ready for use in decision-making processes by citizens, clinicians, public health practitioner’s, policy makers. This is the return of investment to society improving the health of the European citizens and increasing the efficiency of our health care systems. Knowledge translation is supported through WP3 Outreach, engagement and sustainability and WP9 Foresight: Modelling and Scenarios. Additionally, key policy questions are addressed in WP8.

PHIRI Work Packages´ interaction