Abstract
Data standardisation is not merely a technicality but a fundamental cornerstone in the field of public health. It plays a pivotal role in enabling effective data sharing, pooling, analysis, and interpretation, thereby facilitating informed decision-making during infectious disease outbreaks. Despite its undeniable significance, the journey towards achieving data standardisation has been challenging and slow. Even the term ‘data standardisation’ is ambiguous, as it can have a variety of meanings – e.g. there are standards for new data collection, data storage and analysis, and for mapping existing data to a standard. While these example definitions are closely linked – in that each process focuses on the organisation, or homogenisation, of data – this paper will focus on explaining data standardisation tools for the three primary research steps: collection, storage and analysis.
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