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Identifying dementia outcomes in UK Biobank: a validation study of primary care, hospital admissions and mortality data
Wilkinson T, Schnier C, Bush K, Rannikmäe K, Henshall DE, Lerpiniere C, Allen NE, Flaig R et al.. European journal of epidemiology, 2019-02-26
Topic: Risk, prevention and care in population studies
Prospective, population-based studies that recruit participants in mid-life are valuable resources for dementia research. Follow-up in these studies is often through linkage to routinely-collected healthcare datasets. We investigated the accuracy of these datasets for dementia case ascertainment in a validation study using data from UK Biobank-an open access, population-based study of > 500,000 adults aged 40-69 years at recruitment in 2006-2010. From 17,198 UK Biobank participants recruited in Edinburgh, we identified those with ≥ 1 dementia code in their linked primary care, hospital admissions or mortality data and compared their coded diagnoses to clinical expert adjudication of their full-text medical record. We calculated the positive predictive value (PPV, the proportion of cases identified that were true positives) for all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia for each dataset alone and in combination, and explored algorithmic code combinations to improve PPV. Among 120 participants, PPVs for all-cause dementia were 86.8%, 87.3% and 80.0% for primary care, hospital admissions and mortality data respectively and 82.5% across all datasets. We identified three algorithms that balanced a high PPV with reasonable case ascertainment. For Alzheimer's disease, PPVs were 74.1% for primary care, 68.2% for hospital admissions, 50.0% for mortality data and 71.4% in combination. PPV for vascular dementia was 43.8% across all sources. UK routinely-collected healthcare data can be used to identify all-cause dementia in prospective studies. PPVs for Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia are lower. Further research is required to explore the geographic generalisability of these findings.
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APA 7th
Wilkinson, T., Schnier, C., Bush, K., Rannikmäe, K., Henshall, D. E., Lerpiniere, C., et al. (2019). Identifying dementia outcomes in UK Biobank: a validation study of primary care, hospital admissions and mortality data. European journal of epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-019-00499-1
Vancouver
Wilkinson T, Schnier C, Bush K, Rannikmäe K, Henshall DE, Lerpiniere C, et al. Identifying dementia outcomes in UK Biobank: a validation study of primary care, hospital admissions and mortality data. European journal of epidemiology. 2019. doi:10.1007/s10654-019-00499-1. PMID: 30806901.
BibTeX
@article{wilkinson2019-30806901,
author = {Wilkinson, T. and Schnier, C. and Bush, K. and Rannikmäe, K. and Henshall, D. E. and Lerpiniere, C. and Allen, N. E. and Flaig, R. and others},
title = {{Identifying dementia outcomes in UK Biobank: a validation study of primary care, hospital admissions and mortality data}},
journal = {European journal of epidemiology},
year = {2019},
doi = {10.1007/s10654-019-00499-1},
pmid = {30806901},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-019-00499-1}
}
Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. The record's author list ends in “et al.”, so not every author is named. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
Key findings
- Further research is required to explore the geographic generalisability of these findings.
Why it matters
This validation study checked how accurately dementia diagnoses in UK Biobank primary care, hospital and mortality records matched expert review of medical records, finding positive predictive values of roughly 50% to 87% depending on the dataset and dementia type. It is about identifying dementia cases for research, not about treatment, cure or prevention.
Study details
- Participants500,000
- Effect size86.8%; 87.3%; 80.0%
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 66/100
Published in a peer-reviewed journal. Scored zero for study design and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 7 / 10 | Tier 3 — peer-reviewed journal (European journal of epidemiology) |
| Journal's citation record | 2 / 4 | European Journal of Epidemiology: journal h-index 175 (OpenAlex, 2026-10-29) |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 10 / 10 | Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal. |
| How recent | 2 / 5 | 2019 — within 10 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 4 / 4 | 500,000 participants |
| Effect reported | 2 / 3 | Effect reported as a number, without an interval or test |
| Studied in people | 3 / 3 | Studied in people (participant count stated) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | 6 / 7 | Cited 453 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 5 / 5 | 50.3 citations a year over 9 year(s) since 2019 |
| Impact for its field and year | 4 / 6 | Cited 19.7× the average for papers of its field and year (OpenAlex FWCI) |
| Cited by studies here | 4 / 6 | Cited by 81 other studies in this library |
| Still being cited | 4 / 4 | Cited 256 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 4 / 4 | Last-listed author Cathie L. M. Sudlow: h-index 100 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 2 / 3 | University of Oxford: institution h-index 2,205 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 2 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 5 institution(s) in 1 country |
| Indexed in PubMed | 2 / 2 | Indexed in PubMed (PMID 30806901) |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Total | 66 / 100 | — |
What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →
Read the original
- DOI: 10.1007/s10654-019-00499-1
- PubMed: 30806901
- Original source →
- Free full text: European Journal of Epidemiology →
Full text: free to read — OpenAlex lists this copy as free to read: the link above (checked 6 Feb 1020).
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