ESRC/MRC – Understanding Coverage in UK Longitudinal Population Studies

Funding available to deliver a project on understanding coverage in UK longitudinal population studies.

As part of the Population Research UK (PRUK) programme, ESRC and MRC are commissioning an interdisciplinary project to develop a methodology for assessing, on a consistent basis, the coverage of individual longitudinal population studies (LPS).

The project aim is to develop the means to provide consistent, reliable information for potential users to enable them to assess the suitability of each study’s data for different types of research questions across the full spectrum of social, economic and biomedical sciences.

This funding opportunity specifies the use of two of the large population cohorts, UK Biobank (UKB) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), as case studies to be used in developing the methodology.

To meet these aims, successful proposals will be expected to demonstrate how they will for each of the two LPS datasets, as case studies:

• Identify what the original basis was for the study in terms of the target population, the initial issued dataset sample, and recruitment and retention at each subsequent wave or sweep.
• Identify what data is held in each dataset which would identify specific population subgroups and who is included in terms of key characteristics relevant to research uses of the data, assessing what statistical limitations exist on using the data to represent certain population sub-groups. For example, those with protected characteristics, vulnerable groups (homeless or prison etc), social demographics, or rare genetic conditions.
• Develop through testing proposals for evidence-based indicators tools to enable provision of information on a consistent basis across LPS, to help researchers across the social and biomedical sciences to understand whether a dataset is suitable to address their research question.