Amadeus: Accessing and analyzing large scale environmental data in R

Abstract

Environmental health research increasingly uses large scale spatial data to understand relationships between environmental factors and health outcomes. Data access and analysis tools which improve the timeliness and reproducibility of environmental health research are crucial for advancing the field. We present the amadeus package for R, a tool to improve access to and utility with large scale environmental data, primarily covering the United States. amadeus aims to reduce the learning curve for conducting spatial data analyses in R by providing functions which download, process, and calculate covariates from various publicly available environmental data sources. The functions promote interoperability with popular spatial data R packages and integration across other programming languages. Created and maintained with test-driven development, amadeus supports the reproducibility of environmental data acquisition and preparation. The amadeus package has diverse data access and integration applications, ranging from health-oriented studies in environmental epidemiology to ecology and climatology.