Including data on healthcare facilities

[rafapereirabr]

Hi Dani,

I was wondering if it would be possible to include in the package a function a download data on healthcare facilities.

This is ftp source I've been using to download the data of healthcare facilities in Rio. Important things to note:

• Note there is a different data set nearly every month and unfortunately the data sets are not necessarily consistent. I don't think this should be a concern of the package, although perhaps this should be mentioned in the documentation.

• By some strange reason, I cannot access this link from the UK, so I had to use a VPN access.

ftp://ftp.datasus.gov.br/dissemin/publicos/CNES/200508_/Dados/ST/STRJ1506.dbc

most importantly, super congrats for the package !!!

[danicat]

Thanks for your feedback Rafael! Indeed, I'm currently working on adding healthcare stablishments (CNES) support to the package. It is actually the next thing in my to do list.

I can't promise anything, but I believe I'll have some experimental support of the CNES datasets by the end of this month.

This inconsistency problem you've mentioned is actually pretty common in all the DATASUS' datasets. Sometimes the file naming is different, sometimes there are fields in one file but they aren't available in another file from the same dataset and so on...

I'm addressing these issues when possible. The default behaviour is to load all data using the "common denominator" (like, loading fields only available on all files of the same group), but I'm leaving space for custom selections to fit for everyone's needs.

Still, I feel I've not dedicated enough time to this problem to find the most "elegant" solution. I may get back to it once the package is more mature.

About the VPN, I'm not sure why the FTP access from UK would be blocked... it doesn't make sense. Have you tried accessing from another network?

[rafapereirabr]

@danicat , I had success accessing the link from Brazil and from the UK when using a VPN. Otherwise, I've only tried the link from the UK from two different networks of two universities. I have no clue what could cause this, though

[danicat]

@rafapereirabr It seems that the brazilian government is blocking access from other countries... I just have been contacted by a researcher from JHU that is having the same problem as yours. Are you using a public VPN service? Maybe your solution could help this researcher as well.

[rafapereirabr]

Ah, such a shame to hear this. I'm not using a public VPN, though. What I would suggest is that the researcher asks someone he/she knows in Brasil to download the file and send him/her via email/dropbox etc.

[hliebert]

Hey, do you still plan on adding this? Thanks for providing the package!