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UK Biobank: An Open Access Resource for Identifying the Causes of a Wide Range of Complex Diseases of Middle and Old Age
Cathie L. M. Sudlow, John Gallacher, Naomi E. Allen, Valerie Beral, Paul Robert Burton, John Danesh, Paul Downey, Paul Elliott et al.. PLoS Medicine, 2015-03-31
Topic: Risk, prevention and care in population studies
Points• UK Biobank is a very large and detailed prospective study with over 500,000 participants aged 40-69 years when recruited in 2006-2010.• The study has collected and continues to collect extensive phenotypic and genotypic detail about its participants, including data from questionnaires, physical measures, sample assays, accelerometry, multimodal imaging, genome-wide genotyping and longitudinal follow-up for a wide range of health-related outcomes.• Wide consultation; input from scientific, management, legal, and ethical partners; and industrial-scale, centralised processes have been essential to the development of this resource.• UK Biobank is available for open access, without the need for collaboration, to any bona fide researcher who wishes to use it to conduct health-related research for the benefit of the public.The challenge of understanding the determinants of common life-threatening and disabling conditions is substantial.These conditions are typically caused by a combination of lifestyle, environmental, and genomic factors, with individually modest effects and complex interactions, the detection and quantification of which require studies with large numbers of disease cases.While retrospective case-control studies of particular diseases [1] or existing prospective studies of particular risk factors can help to address this challenge [2,3], a complementary approach is to establish large prospective cohorts designed to study a much wider range of known and novel risk factors for a wide range of diseases [4].Prospective studies can assess exposures before the onset and treatment of disease, diseases that are not readily investigated by
Key findings
- Points• UK Biobank is a very large and detailed prospective study with over 500,000 participants aged 40-69 years when recruited in 2006-2010.• The study has collected and continues to collect extensive phenotypic and genotypic detail about its participants, including data from questionnaires, physi
Why it matters
UK Biobank is a large prospective study with over 500,000 participants that collects extensive health data and is openly available to researchers. It provides a resource for studying the causes of complex diseases of middle and old age, including Alzheimer's.
Study details
- Study designcase-control study
- Participants500,000
- Evidence strengthModerate
How this study scored 77/100
Published in a peer-reviewed journal, and it is a case-control study. Scored zero for effect reported and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 7 / 10 | Tier 3 — peer-reviewed journal (PLoS Medicine) |
| Journal's citation record | 3 / 4 | PLoS Medicine: journal h-index 350 (OpenAlex, 2026-10-29) |
| Study design | 6 / 12 | A case-control study |
| Strength of evidence | 3 / 5 | Rated “moderate” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 10 / 10 | Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal. |
| How recent | 1 / 5 | 2015 — within 20 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 4 / 4 | 500,000 participants |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| 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 | 7 / 7 | Cited 12,784 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 5 / 5 | 983.4 citations a year over 13 year(s) since 2015 |
| Impact for its field and year | 6 / 6 | Cited 132.9× the average for papers of its field and year (OpenAlex FWCI) |
| Cited by studies here | 5 / 6 | Cited by 169 other studies in this library |
| Still being cited | 4 / 4 | Cited 6,443 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 4 / 4 | Last-listed author Rory Collins: h-index 131 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 2 / 3 | University of Oxford: institution h-index 2,205 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 3 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 11 institution(s) in 2 countries |
| Indexed in PubMed | 2 / 2 | Indexed in PubMed (PMID 25826379) |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Total | 77 / 100 | — |
What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →
Read the original
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779
- PubMed: 25826379
- Original source →
- Free full text: PLoS Medicine →
Full text: free to read — OpenAlex lists this copy as free to read: the link above (checked 6 Feb 1020).
Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
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.
APA 7th
Sudlow, C. L. M., Gallacher, J., Allen, N. E., Beral, V., Burton, P. R., Danesh, J., et al. (2015). UK Biobank: An Open Access Resource for Identifying the Causes of a Wide Range of Complex Diseases of Middle and Old Age. PLoS Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779
Vancouver
Sudlow CLM, Gallacher J, Allen NE, Beral V, Burton PR, Danesh J, et al. UK Biobank: An Open Access Resource for Identifying the Causes of a Wide Range of Complex Diseases of Middle and Old Age. PLoS Medicine. 2015. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779. PMID: 25826379.
BibTeX
@article{sudlow2015-25826379,
author = {Sudlow, Cathie L. M. and Gallacher, John and Allen, Naomi E. and Beral, Valerie and Burton, Paul Robert and Danesh, John and Downey, Paul and Elliott, Paul and others},
title = {{UK Biobank: An Open Access Resource for Identifying the Causes of a Wide Range of Complex Diseases of Middle and Old Age}},
journal = {PLoS Medicine},
year = {2015},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779},
pmid = {25826379},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779}
}
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