A globally-applicable disease ontology for biosurveillance; Anthology of Biosurveillance Diseases (ABD)

TL;DR

This paper introduces the ABD, a comprehensive ontology designed to standardize the description of infectious diseases relevant to biosurveillance, aiding global health monitoring and security.

Contribution

It presents the first unified, globally-applicable disease ontology tailored for biosurveillance, filling a critical gap in disease data standardization.

Findings

Provides a structured ontology for biosurveillance diseases

Enhances data sharing and interoperability in global health

Facilitates improved disease monitoring and response

Abstract

Biosurveillance, a relatively young field, has recently increased in importance because of its relevance to national security and global health. Databases and tools describing particular subsets of disease are becoming increasingly common in the field. However, a common method to describe those diseases is lacking. Here, we present the Anthology of Biosurveillance Diseases (ABD), an ontology of infectious diseases of biosurveillance relevance.