Is rigorous retrospective harmonization possible? Application of the DataSHaPER approach across 53 large studies.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Proper understanding of the roles of, and interactions between genetic, lifestyle, environmental and psycho-social factors in determining the risk of development and/or progression of chronic diseases requires access to very large high-quality databases. Because of the financial, technical and time burdens related to developing and maintaining very large studies, the scientific community is increasingly synthesizing data from multiple studies to construct large databases. However, the data items collected by individual studies must be inferentially equivalent to be meaningfully synthesized. The DataSchema and Harmonization Platform for Epidemiological Research (DataSHaPER; http://www.datashaper.org) was developed to enable the rigorous assessment of the inferential equiv

SUBMITTER: Fortier I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3204208 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature