demonCoreData

Screenshot of the Tableau Dashboard. Available  [here]  and at the end of this post. (Updated: see notes at end) The OpenDataNI website holds Notifiable Infectious Diseases Reports , provided by the Public Health Agency . The available data runs from Week 50 2014 to (at the time of writing) Week 50 2016. It is a relatively simple dataset, reported weekly, giving the numbers of occurrences of some 35 Reportable Diseases in Northern Ireland. The individual reports are based on figures recorded by the Duty Room and Surveillance. The reports also indicate that: “Food poisoning notifications include those formally notified by clinicians and reports of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Listeria and E Coli O 157 informally ascertained from laboratories.” What I wanted to do with this dataset was examine a few different ways that the selection of timescales can result in different understanding of the data and how it can be used to examine trends and predict

Screenshot of the Tableau Dashboard. Available [here] and at the end of this post. Background In October 2016 Paul Givan (DUP), in his capacity as Communities Minister, launched a grant scheme to benefit both urban and rural community halls. Also at the launch was his party leader, Arlene Foster, who noted that: “Community Halls bring immeasurable benefits to the local community and this £500,000 funding will support groups across Northern Ireland to let them concentrate on enjoying the activities our community halls are designed for.” This all sounds lovely! Community Halls getting funding! Investing in local communities … seriously, what’s not to like? What could possibly go wrong? By the way … did I mention that the scheme was allocated all of £500,000? Keep that figure in mind! Fast forward to January 2017 – a mere three months later! And ‘what went wrong’ largely depends on who one asks. According to the DUP those nasty folks in SF and SDLP have gone and upset