Demographics for Other Areas - synthetichealth/synthea GitHub Wiki
By default, the project contains demographics for the entire United States in src/main/resources/geography/demographics.csv which has been post-processed from publicly available US Census Bureau files.
You can modify the demographics file or have Synthea use an alternative demographics file by altering the src/main/resources/synthea.properties file:
# default demographics is every city in the US
generate.demographics.default_file = geography/demographics.csv
If you modify or replace the demographics file, you will also need to replace the Zip or Postal Codes file which contains postal codes and geographic locations (latitude and longitude) for each location, and the Providers file which contains information and locations (latitude and longitude) for each provider location.
You may also want to change patient names to be more appropriate for another area (e.g. not so North American). If so, you'll also need to modify or replace the Names file.
Generating a State or City
For example, you can generate synthetic patients for the state of New York:
run_synthea "New York"
Alternatively, you can generate a single city:
run_synthea Utah "Salt Lake City"
Scaling the Population
You can generate the population at scale by using the -p command line switch to only generate a specific number of patients. For example, generating a hundred patients:
run_synthea -p 100 Utah "Salt Lake City"
Demographics File Format
The demographics file is a CSV file, with a single row for each city.
| Column Header | Description |
|---|---|
ID |
ID. It is the number of the city. The number must be unique. |
COUNTY |
County number. Ignored. |
NAME |
City Name |
STNAME |
State Name |
POPESTIMATE2015 |
City Population |
CTYNAME |
County Name |
TOT_POP |
County Population |
TOT_MALE |
Percentage of the population that is Male. TOT_MALE and TOT_FEMALE should sum to 1.0. Legal values: 0.0 - 1.0 |
TOT_FEMALE |
Percentage of the population that is Female. TOT_MALE and TOT_FEMALE should sum to 1.0. Legal values: 0.0 - 1.0 |
WHITE |
Percentage of the population that is White. 0.0 - 1.0 |
HISPANIC |
Percentage of the population that is ethnically Hispanic. 0.0 - 1.0 |
BLACK |
Percentage of the population that is Black. 0.0 - 1.0 |
ASIAN |
Percentage of the population that is Asian. 0.0 - 1.0 |
NATIVE |
Percentage of the population that is Native or Indigenous peoples. 0.0 - 1.0 |
OTHER |
Percentage of the population that does not fit into the other racial categories. 0.0 - 1.0 |
1 |
Age Group 0..4. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
2 |
Age Group 5..9. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
3 |
Age Group 10..14. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
4 |
Age Group 15..19. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
5 |
Age Group 20..24. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
6 |
Age Group 25..29. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
7 |
Age Group 30..34. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
8 |
Age Group 35..39. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
9 |
Age Group 40..44. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
10 |
Age Group 45..49. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
11 |
Age Group 50..54. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
12 |
Age Group 55..59. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
13 |
Age Group 60..64. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
14 |
Age Group 65..69. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
15 |
Age Group 70..74. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
16 |
Age Group 75..79. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
17 |
Age Group 80..84. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
18 |
Age Group 85..110. Percentage of the population in this age group. 0.0 - 1.0 |
00..10 |
Annual Income Group $0 USD - $10K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
10..15 |
Annual Income Group $10K USD - $15K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
15..25 |
Annual Income Group $15K 1USD - $25K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
25..35 |
Annual Income Group $25K USD - $35K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
35..50 |
Annual Income Group $35K USD - $50K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
50..75 |
Annual Income Group $50K USD - $75K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
75..100 |
Annual Income Group $75K USD - $100K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
100..150 |
Annual Income Group $100K USD - $150K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
150..200 |
Annual Income Group $150K USD - $200K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
200..999 |
Annual Income Group $200K USD - $999K USD. Percentage of population. 0.0 - 1.0 |
LESS_THAN_HS |
Education Group with Less than High School education. Percentage 0.0 - 1.0 |
HS_DEGREE |
Education Group with a High School equivalent education. Percentage 0.0 - 1.0 |
SOME_COLLEGE |
Education Group with Some College education. Percentage 0.0 - 1.0 |
BS_DEGREE |
Education Group with a Bachelors Degree or Higher education (includes PhD, JD, MD). Percentage 0.0 - 1.0 |
The following columns in each row should sum to 1.0
- Gender:
TOT_MALE,TOT_FEMALE - Race:
WHITE,BLACK,ASIAN,NATIVE,OTHER - Age:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 - Income:
00..10,10..15,15..25,25..35,35..50,50..75,75..100,100..150,150..200,200..999 - Education:
LESS_THAN_HS,HS_DEGREE,SOME_COLLEGE,BS_DEGREE
Gender, Race, Age, Income, and Education all play a role in health access, outcomes, and costs.
Synthea uses Gender, Race, and Age in some disease modules because these are factors in disease prevalence and incidence rates. Synthea uses Income and Education to determine a socioeconomic status. The socioeconomic calculation is here: https://github.com/synthetichealth/synthea/blob/a0e959742cd2ae6ae188fc24af79a660ccf9ea08/src/main/java/org/mitre/synthea/world/geography/Demographics.java#L343
Examples for Other Areas
These are incomplete partial examples for illustration purposes.
If running Synthea for non-US locations, patient records may still require post-processing to clean up the listed country (US will still appear in an address) and Zip or Postal Codes within addresses.
Abridged Example for United Kingdom
Districting and addresses in the United Kingdom differ from the United States. In this example, the County is entered in the CTYNAME column and the Region is entered in the STNAME.
ID,COUNTY,NAME,STNAME,POPESTIMATE2015,CTYNAME,TOT_POP,TOT_MALE,TOT_FEMALE,WHITE,HISPANIC,BLACK,ASIAN,NATIVE,OTHER,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,00..10,10..15,15..25,25..35,35..50,50..75,75..100,100..150,150..200,200..999,LESS_THAN_HS,HS_DEGREE,SOME_COLLEGE,BS_DEGREE
1,1,Shrewsbury,West Midlands,2620,Shropshire,486300,0.489,0.511,0.985,0,0.001,0.004,0,0,0.063,0.063,0.063,0.052,0.052,0.052,0.052,0.052,0.076,0.076,0.076,0.076,0.076,0.035,0.035,0.035,0.035,0.035,0.133333333,0.133333333,0.133333333,0.147225,0.147225,0.147225,0.147225,0.1,0.01,0.001,0.18,0.387,22.35,22.35