Visualisation and optimisation of alcohol-related hospital admissions ICD-10 codes in Welsh e-cohort data.

Introduction: The excessive consumption of alcohol is detrimental to long term health and increases the likelihood of hospital admission. However, definitions of alcohol-related hospital admission vary, giving rise to uncertainty in the effect of alcohol on alcohol-related health care utilization.

Objectives: To compare diagnostic codes on hospital admission and discharge and to determine the ideal combination of codes necessary for an accurate determination of alcohol-related hospital admission.

The challenge of producing an EQA for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the clinical medicine landscape. The importance of pathology testing has come to the forefront. Patients or potential patients are dealing directly with laboratories as they line up in carparks or testing staff come to the front doors to obtain samples.

Pregnancy in teenagers diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus in childhood: a national population-based e-cohort study.

Aims/hypothesis: The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of pregnancies in a national cohort of teenage (<20 years) and young adult women (≥20 years) with and without childhood-onset (<15 years) type 1 diabetes. We hypothesised that, owing to poor glycaemic control during the teenage years, pregnancy outcomes would be poorer in teenage mothers with type 1 diabetes than young adult mothers with type 1 diabetes and mothers without diabetes.

Methods: The Brecon Register of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes diagnosed in Wales since 1995 was linked to population-based datasets in the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, creating an electronic cohort (e-cohort) of legal births (live or stillbirths beyond 24 weeks' gestation) to women aged less than 35 years between 1995 and 2013 in Wales.

Improving mental health through neighbourhood regeneration: the role of cohesion, belonging, quality and disorder.

Poor mental health has been associated with socioeconomic deprivation. The aim was to describe possible mechanisms underpinning the narrowing of mental health inequalities demonstrated by Communities First, an area-wide regeneration programme in Wales, UK. Propensity score matched data from the Caerphilly Health and Social Needs Electronic Cohort Study, assessed changes in mental health, neighbourhood-level social cohesion, belongingness, quality and disorder.

The role of health and social factors in education outcome: A record-linked electronic birth cohort analysis.

Background And Objective: Health status in childhood is correlated with educational outcomes. Emergency hospital admissions during childhood are common but it is not known how these unplanned breaks from schooling impact on education outcomes. We hypothesised that children who had emergency hospital admissions had an increased risk of lower educational attainment, in addition to the increased risks associated with other health, social and school factors.

Mild-to-moderate renal pelvis dilatation identified during pregnancy and hospital admissions in childhood: An electronic birth cohort study in Wales, UK.

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing contributor to the global burden of noncommunicable diseases. Early diagnosis and treatment can reduce the severity of kidney damage and the need for dialysis or transplantation. It is not known whether mild-to-moderate renal pelvis dilatation (RPD) identified at 18-20 weeks gestation is an early indicator of renal pathology.

Epidemiology of alcohol-related emergency hospital admissions in children and adolescents: An e-cohort analysis in Wales in 2006-2011.

Objective: Harmful levels of alcohol consumption in young people are prevalent and of increasing public concern in the western world. Rates of alcohol-related emergency hospital admissions in children and young people between 10 to 17 years were described, and the reasons for these admissions and their association with socio-demographic factors were examined.

Methods: E-cohort data were extracted from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Databank, which contained alcohol-related emergency hospital admissions (N = 2968) from 2006 to 2011 in children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 years in Wales.

Electronic Longitudinal Alcohol Study in Communities (ELAStiC) Wales - protocol for platform development.

Introduction: Excessive alcohol consumption has adverse effects on health and there is a recognised need for the longitudinal analysis of population data to improve our understanding of the patterns of alcohol use, harms to consumers and those in their immediate environment. The UK has a number of linkable, longitudinal databases that if assembled properly could support valuable research on this topic.

Aims And Objectives: This paper describes the development of a broad set of cross-linked cohorts, e-cohorts, surveys and linked electronic healthcare records (EHRs) to construct an alcohol-specific analytical platform in the United Kingdom using datasets on the population of Wales.

Does selective migration alter socioeconomic inequalities in mortality in Wales?: a record-linked total population e-cohort study.

Recent studies found evidence of health selective migration whereby healthy people move to less deprived areas and less healthy people move to or stay in more deprived areas. There is no consensus, however, on whether this influences health inequalities. Measures of socio-economic inequalities in mortality and life expectancy are widely used by government and health services to track changes over time but do not consider the effect of migration.

Risk of emergency hospital admission in children associated with mental disorders and alcohol misuse in the household: an electronic birth cohort study.

Background: Mental disorders and alcohol misuse are common in families but their effects on the physical health of children are not known. We investigated the risk of emergency hospital admissions during childhood associated with living with an adult who has a mental health disorder, or who had an alcohol-related hospital admission.

Methods: We did this cohort study in a total population electronic child cohort in Wales, UK, which includes all children who live in Wales or with a mother who is resident in Wales.

Socioeconomic inequality in medication persistence in primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease - A population-wide electronic cohort study.

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in England fell by 36% between 2000 and 2007 and it is estimated that approximately 50% of the fall was due to improved treatment uptake. Marked socio-economic inequalities in CHD mortality in the United Kingdom (UK) remain, with higher age-adjusted rates in more deprived groups. Inequalities in the persistence of medication for primary and secondary prevention of CHD may contribute to the observed social gradient and we investigated this possibility in the population of Wales (UK).

Risk factors for childhood obesity: a data analysis of the Welsh Health Survey.

Background The prevalence of childhood obesity in Wales is 12%. It has been estimated that obesity will cost the NHS £10 billion a year by 2050 ( Government Office for Science 2007 ). Aim To determine important risk factors associated with childhood obesity from the data in the Welsh Health Survey 2008 to 2012.

Improving Mental Health Through the Regeneration of Deprived Neighborhoods: A Natural Experiment.

Neighborhood-level interventions provide an opportunity to better understand the impact of neighborhoods on health. In 2001, the Welsh Government, United Kingdom, funded Communities First, a program of neighborhood regeneration delivered to the 100 most deprived of the 881 electoral wards in Wales. In this study, we examined the association between neighborhood regeneration and mental health.

Equity in healthcare for coronary heart disease, Wales (UK) 2004-2010: A population-based electronic cohort study.

Background: Despite substantial falls in coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in the United Kingdom (UK), marked socioeconomic inequalities in CHD risk factors and CHD mortality persist. We investigated whether inequity in CHD healthcare in Wales (UK) could contribute to the observed social gradient in CHD mortality.

Methods And Findings: Linking data from primary and secondary care we constructed an electronic cohort of individuals (n = 1199342) with six year follow-up, 2004-2010.

Recent trends in primary-care antidepressant prescribing to children and young people: an e-cohort study.

Background: Concerns relating to increased use of psychotropic medication contrast with those of under-treatment and under-recognition of common mental disorders in children and young people (CYP) across developed countries. Little is known about the indications recorded for antidepressant prescribing in primary care in CYP.

Method: This was an electronic cohort study of routinely collected primary-care data from a population of 1.

Impact of service redesign on the socioeconomic inequity in revascularisation rates for patients with acute myocardial infarction: a natural experiment and electronic record-linked cohort study.

Aim: To investigate the impact of service redesign in the provision of revascularisation procedures on the historical socioeconomic inequity in revascularisation rates for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI).

Design: Natural experiment and retrospective cohort study using linked data sets in the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage databank.

Non-randomised Intervention: An increase in the capacity of revascularisation procedures and service redesign in the provision of revascularisation in late 2011 to early 2012.

A systematic review of the relationship between objective measurements of the urban environment and psychological distress.

The urban environment has become the main place that people live and work. As a result it can have profound impacts on our health. While much of the literature has focused on physical health, less attention has been paid to the possible psychological impacts of the urban environment.

Demographic and socioeconomic inequalities in the risk of emergency hospital admission for violence: cross-sectional analysis of a national database in Wales.

Objectives: To investigate the risk of emergency hospital admissions for violence (EHAV) associated with demographic and socioeconomic factors in Wales between 2007/2008 and 2013/2014, and to describe the site of injury causing admission.

Design: Database analysis of 7 years' hospital admissions using the Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW).

Setting And Participants: Wales, UK, successive annual populations ∼2.

Case-finding for common mental disorders of anxiety and depression in primary care: an external validation of routinely collected data.

Background: The robustness of epidemiological research using routinely collected primary care electronic data to support policy and practice for common mental disorders (CMD) anxiety and depression would be greatly enhanced by appropriate validation of diagnostic codes and algorithms for data extraction. We aimed to create a robust research platform for CMD using population-based, routinely collected primary care electronic data.

Methods: We developed a set of Read code lists (diagnosis, symptoms, treatments) for the identification of anxiety and depression in the General Practice Database (GPD) within the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Databank at Swansea University, and assessed 12 algorithms for Read codes to define cases according to various criteria.

Prevalence of defined ultrasound findings of unknown significance at the second trimester fetal anomaly scan and their association with adverse pregnancy outcomes: the Welsh study of mothers and babies population-based cohort.

Objective: The aim of this article was to estimate the population prevalence of seven defined ultrasound findings of uncertain significance ('markers') in the second trimester and the associated risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Method: A prospective record-linked cohort study of 30 078 pregnant women who had second trimester anomaly scans between July 2008 and March 2011 in Wales was conducted.

Results: The prevalence of markers ranged from 43.

The communities first (ComFi) study: protocol for a prospective controlled quasi-experimental study to evaluate the impact of area-wide regeneration on mental health and social cohesion in deprived communities.

Introduction: Recent systematic reviews have highlighted the dearth of evidence on the effectiveness of regeneration on health and health inequalities. 'Communities First' is an area-wide regeneration scheme to improve the lives of people living in the most deprived areas in Wales (UK). This study will evaluate the impact of Communities First on residents' mental health and social cohesion.

Childhood sleeping difficulties and depression in adulthood: the 1970 British Cohort Study.

Sleeping difficulties in childhood have been associated with an increased risk of depression in adult life, but existing studies have not accounted for comorbid maternal sleeping difficulties and depression. This study aimed to determine the association between childhood sleeping difficulties and depression in adulthood after adjusting for the potential confounding influences of maternal depression and sleeping difficulties. Data from the British Cohort Study 1970, a prospective birth cohort with 30 years of follow-up (1975-2005) were used.

The Welsh study of mothers and babies: protocol for a population-based cohort study to investigate the clinical significance of defined ultrasound findings of uncertain significance.

Background: Improvement in ultrasound imaging has led to the identification of subtle non-structural markers during the 18 - 20 week fetal anomaly scan, such as echogenic bowel, mild cerebral ventriculomegaly, renal pelvicalyceal dilatation, and nuchal thickening. These markers are estimated to occur in between 0.6% and 4.