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What's on Canada's Plate? Visualizing the results from the 2014-2015 Foodbook Study

Live Presentation

Speak with Lilian Diaz about her practicum on January 31st from 4:45-5:15pm via this .

Video Presentation

View Lilian Diaz' poster presentation in this video recording: 

Abstract

Foodbook is a population-based study that was first conducted as a telephone survey from April 2014 to April 2015, with almost 11,000 respondents from all Canadian provinces and territories. This study collected information on food, water, and animal exposures over a typical seven-day period that can act as vehicles of enteric illness. The primary purpose of this study was to support outbreak investigations in Canada by providing baseline exposure levels among the general population that can be used to aid in determining potential sources of foodborne illness outbreaks. In preparation for a second iteration of the study, Foodbook 2.0, a survey of stakeholders highlighted the desire for an interactive data platform to accompany a summary report. In this project, Tableau was used to create an interactive data visualization tool using open-access data from the Foodbook study that will serve as the framework for the Foodbook 2.0 data visualization tool. To create the interactive data tool, STATA, Tableau Prep Builder, and Tableau Desktop were used to label, reshape, and visualize the data from Foodbook 1. Special care was taken to ensure web accessibility, including colour-blind-friendly palettes, plain language text to explain visuals, and data tables to accompany charts. The data visualization tool was limited by Tableau’s lack of statistical capabilities. Due to the weighted nature of the survey data, it was difficult to precisely replicate the results from the Foodbook Report. The Government of Canada currently does not allow publishing of Tableau dashboards onto their webpages; therefore, the tool has been shared with partners via Tableau Public until a web-integrated version can be developed. Despite these limitations, the project described here outlines the successful deployment of an interactive data tool for visualization the results of the Foodbook study and establishes a framework for visualizing the results of Foodbook 2.0 when they become available. Integrating interactive data visualization tools in an enteric outbreak setting can further assist with outbreak management, assist users with navigating complex survey data, and begin to probe interesting questions about exposure to vehicles of enteric pathogens across Canada.  

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