Exploring National Hospital Data for Epidemiology and Health Services Research

Summary

Our Unit holds anonymised English national Hospital Episode Statistics – Admitted Patient Care (HES-APC) data, covering all NHS hospital admissions in England since 1999, linked to anonymised national mortality records. For supervised epidemiological or health services research projects, we can provide data extracts for analysis.

Study topics include:

1. Temporal trends in hospital admission rates for a disease or operation of interest. In recent years, this work has tended to focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated aftermath, for example, trends in pulmonary embolism hospitalisation rates; childhood infection hospitalisation rates; and alcohol-related liver disease mortality rates.
2. Geographical distribution in England of hospitalisation for a disease/operation of interest. Such work can offer important insights around both disease epidemiology and disease management (e.g. thresholds of admission).
3. Outcomes after hospitalisation. These outcomes can be short-term: for example, 30-day case-fatality or readmission rates for a disease/operation of interest, perhaps with study of temporal trends (are rates improving?) or geographical variation (are rates better in some places than others?). Or, with national linked data spanning up to 25 years, the outcomes of interest can be very long-term: recent examples include studies of IBD-related hospitalisation as a risk factor for colorectal cancer later in life, or hospital admission with glandular fever as a risk factor for subsequent multiple sclerosis diagnosis later in life.
4. Variation in any of the above by demographic characteristics (age, sex, ethnic group, socio-economic disadvantage).

Main Method: Quantitative Data Analysis

Available to: FHS, and ASIP students