Use of public datasets in the examination of multimorbidity: opportunities and challenges

The interrogation of established, large-scale datasets presents great opportunities in health data science for the linkage and mining of potentially disparate resources to create new knowledge in a fast and cost-efficient manner. The number of datasets that can be queried in the field of multimorbidity is vast, ranging from national administrative and audit datasets, large clinical, technical and biological cohorts, through to more bespoke data collections made available by individual organisations and laboratories. However, with these opportunities also come technical and regulatory challenges that require an informed approach. In this review, we outline the potential benefits of using previously collected data as a vehicle for research activity. We illustrate the added value of combining potentially disparate datasets to find answers to novel questions in the field. We focus on the legal, governance and logistical considerations required to hold and analyse data acquired from disparate sources and outline some of the solutions to these challenges. We discuss the infrastructure resources required and the essential considerations in data curation and informatics management, and briefly discuss some of the analysis approaches currently used.