CORRECTION

The infographic ‘Health data and mental health research’ has been corrected by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK). The provenance of the public survey data could not be verified as part of a detailed independent review. This information has therefore been removed; this does not invalidate the remaining results and conclusions presented as part of the graphic. HDR UK would like to apologise to readers.

Health data and mental health research

Using health data for research helps us better understand diseases and health condition.

Such as understanding their causes and symptoms or knowing how many people are affected. It provides new ways of identifying people most at risk of becoming ill, diagnosing diseases earlier and providing better care and treatment.

What are researchers doing?

Dr Rona Strawbridge is exploring the genetic links between physical and mental health conditions by using large datasets.

“My research suggests that there is a genetic overlap of serious mental illness and cardiometabolic disease.”

Professor Richard Dobson’s group has developed a tool called CogStack, a tool that can extract information from doctors’ free text notes so that it can be understood by computers to provide insights.

“Using CogStack and other informatics tools, we have developed the VIEWER platform to help healthcare professional target services for psychosis in the right place and to the right people”