Infection timeline
Assemble a per-episode, aligned sequence of exposure, symptom, specimen, treatment, and outcome events, with missingness shown rather than invented.
Research question
For each infection episode, how do events line up over time, and where are index dates, symptom onset, or follow-up missing?
Who this is for
- Hospital epidemiology researchers reconstructing episode chronology
- Infectious-disease researchers preparing cohorts for outcome analysis
- Teams auditing data completeness before running rates or models
Data requirements
| Data | Required | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Participants and infection episodes | Yes | The episodes to align events against |
| Specimens, interventions, outcomes, exposures | Recommended | Events placed on each episode timeline |
| Saved cohort | No | Restrict the timeline to a subset of episodes |
Workflow
Model participants and episodes → Add specimens, treatments, outcomes, exposures
→ Run the timeline analysis
→ Review event sequences and missingness
Step 1 — Build episodes
Episodes are the central entity. Each carries an index date, optional symptom onset, and risk window, so reinfection, recurrence, and serial specimens stay unambiguous.
Step 2 — Assemble timelines
The Timeline analysis aligns each episode's events in calendar order and reports how many episodes are missing symptom onset or index dates — surfacing uncertainty rather than hiding it.
Expected outputs
- Per-episode ordered event lists with first and last event dates
- Counts of episodes missing symptom onset or index date
- Total events assembled across the cohort