Better understanding our Barking & Dagenham community
Understanding how the B&D population uses services alongside wider social determinants of health.
What is the Care City Cohort?
We have been working with UCLPartners, NIHR ARC North Thames, BHR CCG, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and NELFT to create a unique dataset, the Care City Cohort, of Barking and Dagenham residents from 2011 onwards. The dataset includes individual and household level linked data across the health services and Barking and Dagenham council (B&D) and is used to understand how the population uses services alongside wider social determinants of health
The objective is to deliver real change, using the insights from the data and working in partnership with the health and care workforce to confirm how and what we need to do to make population health a priority for all.
We endeavour to translate our research findings into actionable insights for service staff, system leaders and local policy makers.
The dataset contains sociodemographic and health information (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, smoking status and body mass index, prevalence of long-term conditions), information about where individuals live (e.g. levels of deprivation, household occupancy and household tenure), and information about their health and social care service use (e.g. accident and emergency attendances, GP contacts, social care packages, mental health inpatient stays). There is a unique property identifier to facilitate household level analysis.
All data is de-identified so no individual or household can be identified within it, and data that might enable identification, like age, has been grouped or summarised. The dataset is hosted in BHR CCG Data Safe Haven, with different datasets linked together using linkage keys in place of NHS numbers. The Care City Community Board has a critical role in providing public perspectives on the use of the dataset and supporting us to ensure its findings are relevant and accessible to all.
Why is it important?
Research findings should advance understanding of quality of care (and highlight gaps both in service delivery and target populations) deliver context and content for service improvement and support consideration of where to prioritise action in an increasingly scarce health economy to support sustainability.
What has the data shown so far?
Access to vaccines in Barking & Dagenham
In light of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, we have used the dataset to identify some lessons in the inequalities to accessing the flu vaccine and how this can support the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Do Care Homes have One GP or Many?
We looked at care home residents in the borough and which GP surgeries care for them. In particular, we wanted to understand whether multiple GP surgeries are working in the same care home.
Domiciliary Care and Hospital Discharges
With an increasing need for domiciliary care after a hospital admission, the Care City Cohort has been used to highlight the key themes linked between domiciliary care packages and a hospital discharge.
Do you have a question you would like to ask the dataset?
Learn more
Journal Article: Assessing service use and associated expenditure across a range of care settings in one local authority in London. “Understanding health and care expenditure by setting – who matters to whom?” in SAGE Publishing, Journal of Health Services Research & Policy.
Authors: Jenny Shand,PhD Researcher, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, Stephen Morris, RAND Professor of Health Services Research, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge and Manuel Gomes, Associate Professor in Health Economics, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London
Author: Jenny Shand, UCLPartners and UCL
Author: Jenny Shand, UCLPartners and UCL
