Using data to improve public health: COVID-19 secondment

该项目旨在了解心理健康如何受到大流行的影响。这一点很重要，因为COVID-19带来了许多新的挑战。日常生活因其危及生命的性质、封锁、屏蔽、工作变化、家庭教育和自我隔离而受到损害。人们为自己和他人担心;许多人面临孤独。早期的研究表明，人们的心理健康受到了影响。我自己的研究表明，在这段时间里，NHS很难提供通常的高质量医疗保健。在这个项目中，我将分析有多少人在大流行期间出现了抑郁、焦虑、睡眠不佳、酗酒和吸毒、自残和饮食失调等心理健康问题。我将把这与前几年进行比较，以了解COVID期间的变化。这将有助于我们了解COVID的全面影响，并计划如何在未来的大流行中遏制心理健康问题。研究将在哪里以及如何进行当有人在全科医生诊所或医院看到健康专业人员时，他们访问的原因，他们的健康问题和给予的护理等事实都被记录下来。在过去，这些都是写在纸质文件中的。现在这些记录都保存在电脑里。因此，研究人员可以将存储的信息汇集在安全的数据库中，并对其进行研究以改善医疗保健。这是我的研究的一个关键优势，我将使用常规收集的数据，因此不会因为获得新数据而给患者或临床医生带来负担。英国在建立人们的健康数据保持安全但允许研究人员研究它们的设置（平台）方面处于世界领先地位。在这项研究中，我将使用两个高质量的平台：OpenSAFELY和NHS Digital。我将研究有新的心理健康症状和诊断的人数，以及治疗他们的药物。我将使用大流行之前的数据来预测，如果大流行没有发生，预计会有多少人患有心理健康问题。我将把它与实际发生的事情进行比较。这将有助于我们了解大流行病对心理健康和人们所获得的服务的影响。我还将找到可能使人们在流行病期间面临心理健康问题风险的因素。这符合这一筹资呼吁和政府的优先事项。心理健康，医疗保健中断和社会健康被列为需要研究的关键领域。谁将参与作为首席研究员，我将计划和交付这项工作。我将使用上面提到的平台。我将由专家科学家、患者和医生/护士指导。我的工作将是强大的，因为它将使用来自英国人口的大部分数据。不希望其数据被共享的人可以删除其数据。没有多少人这样做，知道他们的数据被安全地保存，正确地使用，并有明确的目标，以帮助他们和国民保健服务。研究人员无法识别个人。我们向政府和公众展示的结果将是摘要。例如，在这项研究中，我们将以经历过心理健康问题的人的总数和百分比来呈现结果。我们将估计有多少可能与大流行有关。我们将说明由于大流行及其封锁措施，哪些人更容易出现心理健康问题。这将有助于政府更好地采取行动，以帮助人民的需要。我们需要清楚地说明什么是/不是新的心理健康诊断。它可以被看作是当有人第一次有心理健康诊断，或者当他们没有它几年。这将由患者和医生/护士决定。这项工作也将是困难的，因为封锁减少了人们与他们的全科医生的接触。我们将需要仔细研究这一点，以告诉真实的影响，新冠肺炎对心理健康。我们需要将这一点与NHS服务中断的影响分开。

The key aimsThis project aims to understand how mental health has been affected by the pandemic. This is important because COVID-19 raised many new challenges. Daily life has been harmed by its life-threatening nature, lockdowns, shielding, changes at work, home schooling and self-isolation. People have feared for themselves and for others; many faced loneliness. Early research shows that people's mental health suffered. My own research showed that the NHS struggled to deliver usual high quality healthcare over this time. In this project, I will analyse how many people during the pandemic developed mental health problems like depression, anxiety, poor sleep, alcohol and drug abuse, self-harm and eating disorders. I will compare this to previous years to understand changes during COVID. This will help us to know the full effects of COVID and to plan how to curb mental health problems in future pandemics.Where and how the research will be undertakenWhen someone sees a health professional in a GP practice or hospital, facts are recorded about the reasons for their visit, their health problems and care given. In the past, these were written in paper files. Now these records are kept on computers. Because of this, researchers can pool the stored information in secure data banks and study them to improve healthcare. This is a key strength of my research, I will use routinely collected data and so will not burden patients or clinicians by getting new data.The UK is world leading in building set-ups (platforms) where people's health data are kept safe yet researchers are allowed to study them. In this research I will use two high quality platforms: OpenSAFELY and NHS Digital. I will study the number of people with new mental health symptoms and diagnoses, and drugs prescribed to treat them. I will use data from before the pandemic to predict how many people with mental health problems would be expected had the pandemic not happened. I will compare this to what has actually happened. This will help us to understand the effect of the pandemic on mental health and on the services people were provided. I will also find factors that may put people at risk of mental health problems during pandemics. This is in line with this funding call and with the government's priorities. Mental Health, Healthcare Disruption and Health in the Society were stated as key areas needing study.Who will be involvedAs the leading researcher, I will plan and deliver this work. I will use the platforms stated above. I will be guided by expert scientists, patients, and doctors/nurses. My work will be powerful as it will use data from a large section of the UK population. People who do not wish their data to be shared, can have their data removed. Not many people do, knowing that their data are kept safely, used correctly and with the clear aim to help them and the NHS. Researchers cannot identify individual people. The results that we show to the government and public will be summaries. For example, in this study we will present the results as overall numbers and percentages of people who experienced mental health problems. We will give estimates on how much could be related to the pandemic. We will say what kinds of people are at more risk of mental health problems due to the pandemic and its lockdown measures. This will help the government to act better to help the needs of people.ChallengesThe plan above does have some challenges. We will need to say clearly what is/is not a new mental health diagnosis. It could be seen as when someone has a mental health diagnosis for the first time, or when they have not had it for several years. This will be decided with patients and doctors/nurses. The work will also be difficult because lockdown reduced people's contact with their GPs. We will need to look carefully at this to tell the real effect of COVID on mental health. We will need to separate this from the effect of disrupted NHS services.