The current state and directions of development of GIS “Epidemiological Atlas of Russia”

The main stages of formation and development in the Academician I.N. Blokhina Nizhny Novgorod Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology of the scientific direction geoinformation technologies in epidemiological surveillance of infectious diseases are considered. The main results of research carried out within the framework of the Industry Research Program of Rospotrebnadzor for 2016–2020 are presented. The methodology and the main stages of the development of the geographically distributed geoinformation software complex “Electronic Epidemiological Atlas of the Russian Federation” (GIS “Epidemiological Atlas of Russia”) are disclosed as well as its structure. The GIS “Epidemiological Atlas of Russia” databases, which contain administrative-territorial, geospatial, statistical and epidemiological information, are universal for all federal districts, do not depend on the number of subjects of the Russian Federation in a particular federal district, and allow changing the composition or structure of federal districts or subjects of the Russian Federation. The specialized database “Directory of Diseases”, which is an independent information resource, is based on the principle of interaction of internal information resources of the atlas, regulatory documents of Rospotrebnadzor and active links to external information resources, as which sources are selected that allow the use of active links (hyperlinks) to these Internet resources, without violating the exclusive right of the copyright holder. The actual scientific direction of the activity of the Academician I.N. Blokhina Nizhny Novgorod Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology—geoinformation technologies in epidemiological surveillance allowed to implement the geoinformation project “Epidemiological Atlas of the Volga Federal District”, the development of which began in 2000–2005 by specialists of the Institute and JSC “Verkhnevolzhsky Aerogeodetic Enterprise”, and to begin the development of GIS “Epidemiological Atlas of Russia”. The main results of the development of GIS “Electronic Epidemiological Atlas of Russia” and the directions of further work of the laboratory of GIS technologies and bioinformatics are presented.