Swiss Study on Air Pollution and Health |
The Swiss Cohort Study on Air Pollution and Health in Adults (SAPALDIA), is an ongoing multi-centre study initiated in 1991 in eight geographic areas representing the range of environmental, meteorological and socio-demographic conditions in Switzerland. Close to 10’000 randomly selected adults were interviewed and examined in 1991 and again invited in 2002 and 2010.
For the third assessment of the cohort in 2010, Swiss TPH updated and extended the existing data systems and workflow management tools to meet the challenging requirements of this complex study.
A first component assists field workers at the study centers in following the protocols for contacting and inviting study participants to the assessment, and guides them through the data collection process during the assessment. Other components provide functionality for data collection (through interviews and a number of diagnostic devices), data transfer and processing, and quality control.
Development of this platform relied extensively on existing open source technologies, including WaveMaker, LimeSurvey, and a LAMP-based server infrastructure. The platform also integrates different communication protocols to address the needs of this multi-center, multi-language study.