Administrative Data Research Centre (ADRC) Ethical Approval
Research type
Research Database
Full title
Administrative Data Research Centre (ADRC)
IRAS ID
149619
Contact name
Brian Green
Contact email
Research summary
Administrative Data Research Centre
REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
14/NI/0026
Date of REC Opinion
24 Mar 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion
Data collection arrangements
The ADRC will bring together datasets from a range of administrative sources on a project by project basis. The type of datasets included are Health and Social Care data (GP registrations, hospital episodes, prescribing data) linked to others such as Census , Education (DENI School Census). This application is for the construction of project-specific anonymised research data. These project specific datasets are created in two stages.
1 - The Data Integration and Linkage Service (DIAL) will process personal identifiable data only. Initially demographic data will be gathered by NISRA to create links between the sources. The basic demographic details will be destroyed and only a set of IDs retained. The set of IDs will be transferred to the 2nd Stage.
2. The Research Support Unit will deal with anonymised data only – they will start with a set of IDs (no identifiable data). These IDs are then encrypted and anonymised attribute data will be attached. The IDs are destroyed leaving only the combined attribute data.
The RSU never see identifiable data and the DIAL never see the attribute data. The dataset is then assessed for disclosure risk and researchers can then researchers can access the data within the safe-setting in NISRA.
Research programme
Each team of researchers will apply to access a dataset specially created for their project. Researchers be required to clearly define the project, the aims and objectives and how they will publicly disseminate findings. The project will then be approved by a RAG. Once the project is approved and all researchers have attained an ‘Approved Researcher’ status the data for the project can be created (see above). The research community be wide-ranging and initially will include researchers from within government, academic and voluntary sectors. Many of the researchers will come from within NI but this will be expanded to include other UK, Ireland and potentially international researchers over the next 5 years. Researchers will have a wide-range of interests – for example •Does education influence health (Linkage of data from schools to examine pathways by which education influences health.) •Risks and protective factors influencing child development (to investigate the effect of mediators on birth and late child development outcomes) •Understanding the high rate of suicide in Northern Ireland (linking Coroner’s Office data to prescribing data) •Migrants to Northern Ireland (Linking 2011 census to Health data to identify particular health needs of the migrant population)
Research database title
Administrative Data Research Centre
Establishment organisation
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA)
Establishment organisation address
McAuley House
2-14 Castle Street
Belfast
BT11SA