NFDI4Health
Networks
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Protocols
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Variables
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The Use Cases “Nutritional epidemiology” and “Epidemiology of chronic diseases” were chosen to showcase complex exposition and outcome data from the epidemiological research area. The complexity in nutritional data mainly results from a variety of dietary assessment instruments, which were chosen depending on the research questions in the studies. This is resulting in varying methods within and between studies and in distinct granularity of detail for the assessed research data (e.g. frequencies vs. intake amount; covered observation periods). Additionally, different dimensions of nutritional data can be analysed: either in more aggregated forms like meal- and dietary patterns, on the level of food groups and food items, or on the level of macro- and micronutrients. For the research data on chronic diseases, similar complexity is introduced by different assessment methods (self-report to medical diagnosis) and the use of different versions regarding the disease classification system by the WHO (ICD-10 vs. ICD-11).
The epidemiological studies in Germany are also characterised by this heterogeneity in the research data, such as the German National Cohort (GNC), EPIC-Potsdam, EPIC-Heidelberg, KORA and SHIP. The efforts to standardise and harmonise the assessed research data and the immediate implementation of developed services in NFDI4Health will provide a huge advantage for the overall research field in Germany.
Based on typical research questions in the respective research areas, scientists of the Use Cases 5.1 “Nutritional Epidemiology” and 5.2 “Epidemiology of chronic diseases” will work on the development of services regarding data standardisation and harmonisation, which will be provided later for the whole research community.