A new cross-platform architecture for epi-info software suite.

Area of Science:

• Public Health Informatics
• Software Engineering
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Epi-Info software is crucial for public health data collection and analysis, particularly during outbreaks.
• Current Epi-Info versions are platform-specific (Windows), limiting accessibility and increasing development complexity.
• Software portability offers significant benefits, including reduced development time, cost, and simplified architecture.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and present a viable cross-platform architecture for the Epi-Info software suite.
• To address the need for understanding and mitigating performance issues in platform-agnostic public health software.
• To enhance the accessibility and usability of Epi-Info across different operating systems.

Main Methods:

• Developed a cross-platform architecture using Electron to wrap an AngularJS application.
• Integrated a Python module for data analytics and a local, browser-based NoSQL database.
• Generated executable applications for Linux, macOS, and Windows from a unified codebase.

Main Results:

• Successfully created cross-platform executables for Linux, macOS, and Windows from a single codebase.
• Demonstrated that cross-platform development does not necessitate a complete sacrifice of application performance.
• Validated the feasibility of the proposed architecture for public health data management.

Conclusions:

• The developed architecture enables cross-platform form design and data collection capabilities.
• Features include offline/online modes, scalable storage, automatic data synchronization, and rapid analytics.
• Results indicate that this approach rivals the performance of traditional, platform-specific solutions, warranting further research.