Research
CIRRAU supports research based on registers, databases and biobanks. The majority of the current projects focus on individual data, and the overall framework could be termed ‘translational population studies’. Aims and approaches vary widely among projects, and different traditions and best practices meet in interdisciplinary collaborations.
The fields of health economics, social epidemiology and life course epidemiology represent most of the projects supported by the CIRRAU infrastructure. Studies vary greatly in size and scope.
RESEARCH AREAS
Health economics
CIRRAU’s research in this area will focus on the analysis and evaluation of economic and social implications of issues relating to health, health care, and social care delivery. Issues studied include
- Labour market, workplace organization and employee health
- Efficiency of the health care sector
- Health and retirement associations
- Early exposures and investment in health during childhood and
- Non-adherence
Social and life course epidemiology
Social epidemiology and life course epidemiology use concepts from medicine, sociology, economics, biology, psychology, demography and modern statistical tools. The objective of social epidemiology is to understand how social conditions give rise to disease patterns and thereby identify both individual and contextual factors that have an effect on disease. Life course epidemiology explores early life exposures and critical periods, and it identifies health trajectories to separate effects into within and between family components. Within CIRRAU we study
- Health effects at the individual, familial and neighbourhood level
- Inter-generational influence on health of various characteristics
- Impact on the families of patients
- Causal inference and
- Quasi-randomisation and natural experiments
Integrating register data with biobanks
The data resources consist of specific research cohorts and regional and national databases in combination with optimised longitudinal register data for the entire Danish population. In addition, cohort studies can be combined with case-sibling control studies and data from the Danish Neonatal Screening Biobank. Our platform will allow other groups to know what data are available, to establish collaborations and joint projects and to have access to updated register follow-up data on their cohort. The goal is to maximise the available data sources, while ensuring that permissions are granted, that no one gives up rights or authority with respect to their own data, and that ethical and data protection rules are adhered to.
