What is the ‘Diabetes Data Science Catalyst’?
The Diabetes Data Science Catalyst will support research of relevance to both diabetes and cardiovascular diseases through the use of health data science and advanced analytics such as Artificial Intelligence.
Professor Ewan Pearson is the Theme Lead for the Diabetes Data Science Catalyst.
Why is the ‘Diabetes Data Science Catalyst’ important for cardiovascular research?
Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are closely related – cardiovascular diseases are the cause of death in around two thirds of people with diabetes. However, there remain many unanswered research questions about the links between diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and how best to target treatments to help patients and their families living with these conditions.
What are we doing?
We are:
- Supporting driver projects that speed up the use of health data in diabetes research.
- Supporting and enabling researchers to better understand and use healthcare systems data. We held a showcase event to highlight the support available. Work is also ongoing to develop and share Diabetes Phenotypes. You can read about this in our Computable Phenotypes area here.
- Providing guidance for researchers wishing to use diabetes datasets for research. Have a look at the information we have collated on key national datasets and how to access them:
How to access data & other considerations
The guidance currently refers to clinical trials, although many of these datasets are accessible within Trusted Research Environments under CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT.
Extending the research potential of diabetes cohorts, Diabetes Cohorts will be some of the first cohorts to join our new platform.
Diabetes Community of Practice
Diabetes Community of Practice will bring together researchers working within diabetes health data research across the UK providing the opportunity for group members to present their latest research findings and make new connections and collaborative links. Meetings will be held quarterly.
If you’d like to be part of the Diabetes Community of Practice, please email bhfdsc@hdruk.ac.uk.
Areas of work
Find out more about our data-led research.
Whole Population Data
We aim to improve access to and use of high-quality, linked health datasets covering entire populations across the UK.
Defining Disease
To drive large-scale, data-driven research, we’re working to develop and share reusable definitions of cardiovascular diseases in computable forms. These definitions enable researchers to interpret and use health data, leading to more accurate and reproducible studies.
Enhancing Cohorts
We’re working to accelerate health data research by making it easier, faster, and more secure to link data from clinical cohorts with routine health records. This approach will help researchers uncover new insights into disease causes, progression, and treatment, improving patient care and outcomes.
Data Enabled Clinical Trials
By integrating routinely collected NHS health data into clinical trials, we’re helping researchers recruit participants more effectively, reduce administrative burdens, and generate real-world evidence that can lead to quicker, more impactful advances in cardiovascular care.
Imaging
Cardiovascular imaging research has the potential to transform disease diagnosis, risk assessment, and treatment. This area aims to improve access to imaging data linked to health-relevant datasets across the UK, enabling innovative research and improving patient outcomes.
Smartphones and Wearables
We’re working to unlock the potential of smartphone and wearable data to discover new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat cardiovascular disease, by establishing secure access to and fair use of smartphone and wearable data linked to healthcare records.
CVD-COVID-UK / COVID-IMPACT
CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT is a major research programme coordinated by the BHF Data Science Centre, bringing together a consortium of over 400 researchers across more than 50 organisations. The programme enables analysis of pseudonymised, linked, nationally collated healthcare datasets across the UK to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease, as well as its impact on other health conditions and risk factors.
Stroke Data Science Catalyst
This partnership between the BHF Data Science Centre, HDR UK and the Stroke Association will enable researchers to securely access, link and analyse existing UK health data, speeding up the search for better stroke prevention, treatments and care.
Kidney Data Science Catalyst
This partnership between the BHF Data Science Centre, Kidney Research UK and HDR UK will enable researchers to securely access, link and analyse existing UK health data, speeding up the search for better kidney and cardiovascular disease prevention, treatments, and care.