Catalyzing Knowledge-Driven Discovery in Environmental Health Sciences through a Community-Driven Harmonized Language

Holmgren, Stephanie D.; Boyles, Rebecca R.; Cronk, Ryan D.; Duncan, Christopher G.; Kwok, Richard K.; Lunn, Ruth M.; Osborn, Kimberly C.; Thessen, Anne E.; Schmitt, Charles P.

Harmonized language is critical for helping researchers to find data, collecting scientific data to facilitate comparison, and performing pooled and meta-analyses. Using standard terms to link data to knowledge systems facilitates knowledge-driven analysis, allows for the use of biomedical knowledge bases for scientific interpretation and hypothesis generation, and increasingly supports artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Due to the breadth of environmental health sciences (EHS) research and the continuous evolution in scientific methods, the gaps in standard terminologies, vocabularies, ontologies, and related tools hamper the capabilities to address large-scale, complex EHS research questions that require the integration of disparate data and knowledge sources. The results of prior workshops to advance a harmonized environmental health language demonstrate that future efforts should be sustained and grounded in scientific need. We describe a community initiative whose mission was to advance integrative environmental health sciences research via the development and adoption of a harmonized language. The products, outcomes, and recommendations developed and endorsed by this community are expected to enhance data collection and management efforts for NIEHS and the EHS community, making data more findable and interoperable. This initiative will provide a community of practice space to exchange information and expertise, be a coordination hub for identifying and prioritizing activities, and a collaboration platform for the development and adoption of semantic solutions. We encourage anyone interested in advancing this mission to engage in this community.