GW4 Consortium for the Analysis of Intensively Collected Health Data

Background

Intensive data collection is made increasingly possible by technological innovation, including ‘apps’ on smartphones. However, the amount of data collected is far outstripping the ability of researchers to analyse such data. Intensively-collected data could help people to better manage their own health, and allow us to really move into the era of personalised medicine.

We will build a GW4 community of statisticians, mathematicians, data scientists and epidemiologists who are developing and applying methods for analysing intensively collected data. This innovative collaboration will bring together methodologists with those developing health sensors, and end users of the complex data, both within and beyond healthcare. By building a community across institutions and including diverse areas of application, we will enable development and dissemination of new methods, implementation of best practice and sharing of datasets.

Project Summary

The community held a one day workshop with methodologists and stakeholders (users of data or companies developing monitors) to discuss and identify grand challenges, and to encourage networking and collaborations between the two groups. These grand challenges were taken forward by separate teams, to develop into pilot projects. A final meeting was held to discuss methods for analysing intensively collected data and to consolidate the community. The community identified two datasets to analyse in future projects which were led by community members and undergraduate students.