Friday, October 21, 2011

Standardizing Ontology a Top Priority for NICHD

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development held a series of "vision workshops" to create its vision for the next decade.

In a slide deck here (warning: PDF), the number one recommendation under the heading of "Transdisciplinary Science" is ...Standardize ontology, nomenclature, and data standards across disciplines.

The Director of NICHD, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, reitierated that recommendation today in a presentation to the Clinical and Translational Science Award Consortium Child Health Oversight Committee (CC-CHOC). The CC-CHOC meeting had a theme of "Quality Data from Pediatric Trials".

Speakers throughout the day emphasized the need for development and use of standards for collection of data in pediatric research.