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title: 'Human Services Data Specification (HSDS)'
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<p>The Human Services Data Specification (HSDS) from Open Referral is an exchange format for publishing machine readable data about health, human, and social services, their locations, and the organizations that provide them.  For the purposes of this specification, human services are broadly defined, ranging from food assistance to job training and health care. This exchange format is meant to complement –not replace– existing storage formats currently in use.</p>

<p>This project is dedicated to defining the API for use in HSDS implementations, using the <a href="https://www.openapis.org/">OpenAPI specification</a>. The goal is to continue to define, and evolve a machine-readable definition of the HSDS API , helping standardize the APIs for human services and 211 programs, making them more accessible to partners, and government agencies.</p>

<p>If you have questions about this work you can visit the <a href="https://openreferral.org/">Open Referral</a>, the governing organization for the work, or you can <a href="http://spec.open.referral.adopta.agency/definition/">submit an issue using the Github repository for this project</a>.</p>