This project is a SCPHRP seed-funded research project. Seed-funding research was part of the SCPHRP remit during the period of 2008 ’ 2012.
Institution:
University of Dundee
Principle investigator:
Dr Miles D Witham
Existing interventions to postpone disability in later life have only modest effects and new interventions are therefore required. Current population-based observational studies in older people fail to integrate health, social and functional data, thus depriving us of opportunities to explore new targets for intervention.
This project will combine health data from Tayside Health informatics Centre, with social services data (Dundee City Council) and detailed functional outcome data on older people who have undergone rehabilitation within the Dundee Medicine for the Elderly service. A novel, cross-organisational data-sharing protocol will be used. We will use these combined datasets to examine a series of questions, including the predictors of future dependency, social service use and institutionalisation and the effect of medications on the trajectory of functional decline.
The methodology developed will also allow future data sharing across agencies when testing new public health policy initiatives to decrease dependency and disability in older people.
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