Ethnic inequalities in diabetes in the UK: how NHS electronic health records contribute substantively to the knowledge base

Date:

Wednesday, 27 February 2019

Time:

12.00pm – 1.00pm

Venue:

Seminar Room 1, Level 8
Tahir Foundation Building (MD1)
Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
National University of Singapore
12 Science Drive 2, S(117549)

Synopsis:

Routinely collected electronic health records (EHRs) are increasingly used for research. With their use comes the opportunity for large-scale, high-quality studies that can address questions not easily answered by randomized clinical trials or classical cohort studies involving bespoke data collection. However, the use of EHRs generates challenges in terms of ensuring methodological rigor, a potential problem when studying complex chronic diseases such as diabetes. This talk will describe firstly how EHRs are used to manage patient care across the UK National Health Service (NHS), and secondly, the promises and pitfalls of using EHRs to conduct observational research. These include dealing with the complexities of disease progression and treatment, the dangers of introducing time-related biases and problems of inconsistent data recording, missing data and confounding. Finally, the talk will briefly summarize Dr Mathur’s current programme of work examining ethnic inequalities along the diabetes care pathway in the UK.

About the speaker:

Dr Rohini Mathur is an Assistant Professor in the department of Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. As a member of the Electronic Health Records research group, she works as an epidemiologist specialising in observational research using large electronic health databases including the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). She completed her PhD in Epidemiology at LSHTM in 2015. Rohini currently holds a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship investigating ethnic inequalities in trajectories of cardiometabolic risk factor control and outcomes of type two diabetes. Rohini also has over ten years’ experience with the Clinical Effectiveness Group at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), where she remains an active collaborator. She makes extensive use of the east London Database to conduct research to support quality improvement initiatives across east London primary and secondary care services, with a focus on reduction of ethnic and social inequalities. Rohini is a member of the diabetes expert working-group for the UK Biobank and collaborates on projects with Public Health England and the East London Genes and Health Study.