COVID-19 open data: An ecological study and international collaboration examining pandemic trends in Northern Periphery arctic countries

Objectives: In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence generation lagged behind public health responses. This study describes an international collaboration of frontline clinicians who used open data describing COVID-19 trends to generate “practice-based evidence”. Methods: Open data resources from nine Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) countries were harnessed using the open-source programming language ‘R’ and our collaborations analyses and insights were published on a public-facing website. The website’s visualisations guided teleconference discussions from September 2020 to March 2021, focusing on contextualizing national responses, especially in rural regions. Results: This project facilitated shared learning from COVID-19 trends and highlighted key aspects of national responses. Notably, rural NPA regions experienced less COVID-19 cases and mortality in the first year of the pandemic. Conclusion: This international collaborative effort, driven by open data analysis, provided a platform to share real-world insights. The study offers a potential template for future pandemics and emphasises the importance of sustaining open data resources, including granular data like excess mortality, for effective pandemic learning.