Aim:

• To set in motion the process of creating a body of trained investigators with an understanding of the applied health research potential of routine data, informed by an up-to-date appreciation of the legal and governance as well as scientific considerations regarding its use.

Overall objectives:

• To show how people from different discipline backgrounds can become equipped to do high quality applied health research that uses existing data sources, including routinely collected health data.

Interim objectives:

• To map the territory that would-be investigators need to know about -HDS research that NIHR wishes to fund.
• To highlight some of the undesirable consequences of a lack of appropriate training.
• To avoid duplication by identifying areas of knowledge already well covered by other agencies.
• Collaboratively to populate the training gaps with indicative content.
• To build a group of ‘change agents’ from different discipline backgrounds who understand the opportunities and the limitations posed by using existing data sources in multidisciplinary applied health research.

Leadership team:

Leadership team: Jenny Hewison.

HealthDataFiT: Filling In the Training gaps in Health Data Science

• A core focus of the Health Data Science (HDS) workstream of the NIHR Applied Health and Care Research Methodology Incubator has been to explore the training needs of research methodologists working across the health data science research field.
• The aims of the HealthDataFiT project were to seek input from across the UK to better understand the views/experience of postgraduate research students, alongside early and mid-career researchers working in this arena. The overall goal was to identify where/how training courses and resources should be targeted.

Supported by the Incubator, members Kate Absolom, Zoe Hancox and Ruth Evans carried out the project, which combined a cross-sectional interview study with a complementary online survey. A wide range of gaps in HDS training and knowledge/skills was uncovered.

The study came to the attention of the DHSC’s Science, Research and Evidence Directorate, which was undertaking its own investigation of ‘data skills gaps in health and care research’, and the HealthDataFiT team have worked with them to compile a joint report of findings. A paper for publication will follow later in the autumn.