The Covid-19 Vaccination Status and Covid-19 Adverse Reaction datasets are important assets in supporting vital research into vaccine effectiveness and identifying potential risk factors associated with the vaccines.

The ability to request access to these datasets via the HDR Innovation Gateway will increase our understanding of about the trajectory of the pandemic and inform policy decisions about the vaccine programme as it continues.

Working in partnership with HDR UK, these datasets are hosted in the NHS Digital Trusted Research environment (TRE), a new service providing researchers with key data on a secure platform. Supporting a growing research base with analysis, opportunities to collaborate, share code and link data in a safe environment, the TRE is now playing a valuable role in the UK’s COVID-19 response.

Importantly, these are linked datasets, enabling researchers to analyse and model the data against other key metrics, to answer key questions about vaccine effectiveness including: how long vaccine induced protection lasts, what are the social, behavioural and economic factors influencing vaccine uptake and how will any potential changes in the virus impact the effectiveness of vaccines?

The rapid development of the infrastructure to support this access has been put in place by Health Data Research UK, the national institute for health data science, and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) working in partnership to lead the “Data & Connectivity” programme, part of the Government Office for Science’s National Core Studies. These studies are being informed by input from patients and the public to ensure access to and use of data have a defined public benefit.

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Further information on these datasets:

The COVID19 Vaccination Adverse Reaction dataset can be used to track special events of interest (ASEI) that happen in the first 15mins of vaccine administration.

The COVID19 Vaccination Status dataset can be used to analyse the vaccine uptake by demographics and region across England.

To request access to these and other datasets supporting research on Covid-19, visit the HDR UK Innovation Gateway.

About The National Core Studies – Data & Connectivity:

The National Core Studies are enabling the UK to use health data and research to inform both near and long-term responses to COVID-19, as well as accelerating progress to establish a world-leading health data and research infrastructure.

Data & Connectivity” supports the other five studies and accelerates the approach to answering key research questions by enabling streamlined data access and analysis. The study brings together key assets of the UK data infrastructure by working in partnership with stakeholders from across the four nations to organise medical, biological and social science data on an unprecedented scale.

Data and Connectivity makes Covid-19 datasets safely available to researchers through the Health Data Research Innovation Gateway and the UK’s trusted research environments.

About Health Data Research UK (HDR UK)

HDR UK is the national institute for health data science. Our mission is to unite the UK’s health data to enable discoveries that improve people’s lives. HDR UK is funded by UK Research and Innovation, the Department of Health and Social Care in England and equivalents in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and leading medical research charities.

HDR UK was established in 2018 to support research on health data at scale to advance our understanding of disease and enable new discoveries that will ultimately improve health and care. We have established national research programmes that use data at scale, and we are building an infrastructure to enable the responsible access and analysis of this data. Our work is structured around three themes:

  • Uniting health data – which includes the UK Health Data Research Alliance and the Health Data Research Innovation Gateway.
  • Improving health data – which includes tools, methods, Health Data Research Hubs and the BHF Data Science Centre.
  • Using health data – which includes research discoveries and skills development across four national priority areas: Understanding the Causes of Disease, Clinical Trials, Public Health and Better Care.

We are delivering this strategy through our inclusive, team-oriented One Institute ethos – bringing together NHS, universities, research institutes and charities – built on our values.