Big Health Data Research

Botnar

We are interested in studying the burden of musculoskeletal conditions to the NHS, other national healthcare systems, and to the whole society.

We explore routinely collected data as a primary source to understand the frequency, magnitude, and factors associated with both prevalent and rare musculoskeletal conditions.

This approach enables us to understand the natural history of complex conditions such as arthritis (osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, amongst others) or bone diseases such as osteoporosis and its main complication, fragility fractures.

We use complex statistical modelling techniques to disentangle the causes underlying the observed associations, and to provide clinicians, commissioners, and patients with reliable information on the relevance of each particular condition from different perspectives.

As part of this, we have established a number of international collaborations with world experts in bioinformatics, statistics, epidemiology, rheumatology, and orthopaedic surgery. With them, we try to improve not only the amount and the quality of data available, but also the methods used to analyse and interpret old and newly gathered information.

Our team

Daniel Prieto-Alhambra

Associate Professor and NIHR Clinician Scientist
Andrew Judge

Associate Professor and Senior Statistician
Wulf Forrester-Barker

Information Governance Manager
Antonella Delmestri

Senior Database Manager
Paloma O'Dogherty Cordero

P.A to Daniel Prieto-Alhambra and Research Facilitator
Rafael Pinedo Villanueva

Senior Research Associate in Health Economics
Samuel Hawley

Epidemiology Statistician, DPhil Student
Gulraj Matharu

Clinical Research Fellow in Orthopaedics
Sara Khalid

Statistician/Epidemiologist

User Group Representatives

See full list

NDORMS Information Security Policy

We deal with large volumes of sensitive data and gained NHS Information Governance Toolkit certification in 2015 to give assurance to data providers. It works within information governance policies for the whole department.