Exploring Cancer in Colorado using a novel data platform: the ECCO experience

To create a publicly available, interactive data platform to visualize various data measures reflecting Colorado and its residents to support research and outreach efforts, specifically focusing on cancer burden and disparities throughout the state. This platform, named ECCO (Exploring Cancer in Colorado), aims to integrate diverse public data sources into a unified, user-friendly interface, accessible to researchers, community members, and outreach programs alike.

A multi-disciplinary team developed ECCO, leveraging public data sources like Cancer InFocus, State Cancer Profiles, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The platform's architecture employs a three-tiered web application model, utilizing a PostgreSQL database, a backend API built with FastAPI, and a Vue 3 frontend with an Open Layers map. Data is organized geographically at the county and/or census tract levels, categorized into measure categories (e.g., socio-demographics, cancer risk factors), and further filterable by demographic characteristics. An automated Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) data pipeline ensures regular updates of the data.

The platform visualizes data such as socio-demographics, cancer risk factors, screening adherence, and cancer incidence and mortality rates. Additionally, ECCO incorporates location-specific data for cancer care facilities, health services, environmental exposures, and political boundaries. To date, ECCO has had 1.1K unique visitors and over 19K pageviews according to Google Analytics.

The ECCO platform provides a valuable tool for understanding and addressing cancer disparities in Colorado. By integrating diverse data sources and offering interactive visualization, ECCO enhances the ability of researchers, community members, and outreach programs to identify populations at risk, inform interventions, and support research priorities.

The application and code are available at https://coe-ecco.org/ and https://github.com/colorado-cancer-center/ecco .

Key Objective: This work sought to develop ECCO (Exploring Cancer in Colorado), an interactive, easily-accessible data platform designed to visualize and understand diverse cancer-related data measures reflective of Colorado and its residents.Knowledge generated: ECCO integrates public data from sources like Cancer InFocus, State Cancer Profiles, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, visualizing measures such as socio-demographics, cancer risk factors, screening adherence, and cancer incidence and mortality rates at both county and census tract levels. The platform also incorporates location-specific data on cancer care facilities, health services, environmental exposures, and political boundaries.