Pa. researchers publish century of disease data

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Pa-researchers-publish-century-of-disease-data-5019382.php

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have published more than a century's worth of data on scores of infectious diseases they compiled while putting together computer models and simulations for research.

Professors Donald Burke and William van Panhuis repeatedly dipped into written historical records and finally decided to digitize weekly reports for more than 87 million individual cases of 56 contagious diseases reported from 1888 to 2011.........

One study the researchers did before making the data public looked at the effect of vaccines on prevalence of certain diseases and concluded that the incidence of diseases such as measles and rubella fell dramatically and almost immediately after vaccines became available......more.......

Another link:

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/sc...worth-of-data-on-disease/stories/201311270206

The researchers named the data set Project Tycho (www.tycho.pitt.edu), after Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer whose detailed observations were later used by his assistant Johannes Kepler, to derive the laws of planetary motion. Dr. Burke and Dr. van Panhuis expect that their data will be used by other scientists studying infectious diseases as they relate to everything from weather patterns to population density.

The report, Project Tycho:

http://www.tycho.pitt.edu/