Overview
Join the 2024 Pediatric Sepsis Data Challenge to sharpen your data science skills while addressing a critical global health problem! Using a synthetically generated dataset based on real clinical data, you will develop a model to predict in-hospital mortality in children.
Background on the challenge
Sepsis, a severe response to infection leading to organ dysfunction or death, is a leading cause of mortality in children, particularly in developing countries. In 2017, an estimated 48.9 million cases of sepsis were reported globally, with children accounting for over half of these cases. A staggering 85% of these cases occurred in low- and middle-income countries. Many sepsis-related deaths could be prevented with early detection and timely treatment using simple, highly effective interventions like antimicrobials and fluid resuscitation. The 2024 Pediatric Sepsis Data Challenge was created to help address this critical gap in healthcare.
The dataset and challenge objective
The data for the 2024 Pediatric Sepsis Data Challenge comes from a deidentified, curated research dataset of a study called “Smart discharges to improve post-discharge health outcomes in children: A prospective before-after study with staggered implementation”. Participants will be provided with a synthetically generated training data set to reduce the risk of patient re-identification. The synthetic training set was generated from a random subset of the original data. Solutions will be evaluated against the remaining original dataset that will be unseen and unavailable to participants.
The challenge is to design and implement a working, open-source algorithm that can predict in-hospital mortality from routinely collected data at the time of presentation to a health facility in Uganda.
Who can participate
The Challenge aims to support global participants in building skills in model development for clinical risk prediction. We encourage the formation of multidisciplinary, international teams, with the hope of catalyzing new collaborations among experienced mentors and novice researchers and mentees. We invite anyone, from those new to data science to veterans of the field, to participate. Participants can include students, faculty, and individuals with various roles in non-profit, academic, government, and industry organizations.
Eligibility
- Everyone can participate – the competition is open to anyone interested!
- Participants must be in teams of 2-5 members*
- Completion of registration form (one form per team) with information of all members must be submitted by December 11, 2024 11:59 p.m. PT.
- Teams must submit one entry during the preliminary phase to qualify for participation in the active phase.
*Teams of more than 5 members are allowed with permission from the challenge organizers. Please email Charly Huxford with the details of your team if you plan for more than 5 members.
Tips for Finding Team Members:
- Request access to the private discussion board.
- Post your information (e.g., name, email, institution, role, experience).
- Collaborate with others to form a team.
- Register your team once it’s formed.
How it works
Rules
- Multiple teams from the same organization (such as company, university, etc.) are allowed, provided they are truly independent and do not share team members, code, or ideas. Multiple teams from the same research group or unit are not allowed.
- You may use public code from another team if they posted it before the competition.
- You may not share your code publicly during the competition, nor use other competitors' code posted during the competition.
- You may not publicly share details of your methods (e.g., in a blog, article, or talk) during the competition.
- You must use the same team name and email address throughout the competition. If your team has used multiple names or addresses, contact the organizers immediately to avoid disqualification.
Timeline and important dates
- November 4, 2024 – Challenge opens and preliminary phase begins.
- December 11, 2024 – Entry deadline. This is the last day teams may register for the challenge.
- January 10, 2025 – Preliminary phase ends. Teams must submit at least 1 entry by this date to be eligible to participate in the active phase.
- January 11 – 26, 2025 – Hiatus. No active participation during this time. The team will use this period to improve the Challenge in preparation for the active phase.
- January 27, 2025 – Active phase start date.
- April 28, 2025 – Active phase ends. Final submission deadline.
- May 26, 2025 – Final scores released, and winning team announced.