Open AccessHTrack: A new tool to facilitate public health field visits and electronic data capture
Author(s) -
Dania M. Rodríguez,
Kyle Ryff,
Liliana Sánchez-González,
Vanessa RiveraAmill,
Gabriela Paz–Bailey,
Laura Adams
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0244028
Subject(s) - android (operating system) , field (mathematics) , computer science , automatic identification and data capture , software , data collection , citizen science , data science , bridge (graph theory) , computer security , medicine , operating system , statistics , botany , mathematics , pure mathematics , biology
Many applications have been developed for electronic data collection. However, offline field navigation tools incorporating secure electronic data capture and field visit tracking are currently scarce. We created an R-Shiny application, HTrack (Household Tracking), for use on encrypted Android devices in the field. The application was implemented in the Communities Organized to Prevent Arboviruses (COPA) project, a study beginning in 2018 to better understand arboviral disease incidence in 38 communities in Puerto Rico. The application was used to navigate to randomly selected structures and capture visit outcomes after conducting multiple visits for participant recruitment. It also served as a bridge to an alternate software, Epi Info, to collect participant-level questionnaire data. This application successfully captured each visit outcome and improved the logistics of field level activities for the COPA project, eliminating the use of paper maps for navigation. We show the development of HTrack and comment on the limitations and strengths of this application and further improvements.