Making an impact:

The potential uses of UK Biobank to

improve health policy and practice
HELLO!
I am Dr Rishi Caleyachetty MBBS PhD
I am Group Leader in Epidemiology for the UK Biobank
You can find me at @RCaleyachetty
1.
ENABLING SCIENTIFIC
DISCOVERIES THAT IMPROVE
HUMAN HEALTH
 Following 500,000 people to understand how lifestyle, genes and
environment interact to cause diseases in some people but not in others

 Most accessible, in depth, largest, easy to use and adaptable biomedical

data resource in the world

 To enable the scientific discoveries that will improve human health

today and tomorrow
2.
OVERVIEW OF
UK BIOBANK RECRUITMENT
UK Biobank has a unique combination of:

 Large-scale data
 500,000 participants
 40-69 years
 Recruited 2006-2010

 Deeply characterised

 Data highly standardised and curated

 Biological samples

 Linkage to electronic health records over time

 Readily accessible to researchers

3.
ENHANCEMENTS TO
UK BIOBANK
Repeat assessment Web-based questionnaires Physical activity monitor
n=20,000 N~200,000 n=100,000

Baseline biochemistry Genotyping Imaging

n=500,000 n=500,000 n=100,000
Assessment 2014-2023
4.
MORE THAN JUST A
BIOBANK
Following the health of 0.5 million UK Biobank participants
through linkage to National Health Service (NHS) records

Regularly updated information on a wide range of

diseases from NHS datasets in all three countries: Scotland: 36,000
participants

 Deaths: cause and date of death

 Cancers: site, stage, grade and date of cancer
England: 446,000
 Hospital discharges: diagnosis, procedure and participants
date
Wales: 21,000
 Primary care data: diagnosis, prescription, participants

laboratory
 Available to all bona fide researchers for all types of health-related
research that is in public interest

 No preferential or exclusive access; use of the resource on same basis

for academic or commercial researchers

 ResearchersUK onlyBiobank:
have to payPrinciples ofofAccess
for the costs using the resource (and
not for any of the costs of setting it up)

 Researchers are required to publish their findings and return the data
so that other researchers can use them (including data from analyses
of samples, images, etc)
5.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RECORD
LINKAGE TO PRIMARY CARE
Potential research that can be done with UK Biobank linkage with Primary
Care Records

 Epidemiology

 Risk score development

 Health Services research

 Pharmacoepidemiology/Pharmacogenetics
Highest ranked causes of death and disability in the England in 2016 (all ages)

Death Disability

1. Ischaemic heart disease 1. Low back and neck pain

2. Lung cancer 2. Skin diseases

3. Stroke 3. Migraine

4. Alzheimer’s disease 4. Sense organ diseases

5. COPD 5. Depressive disorders

6. Lower respiratory infection 6. Anxiety disorders

7. Colorectal cancer 7. Falls

8. Breast cancer 8. Oral disorders

9. Self-harm 9. Asthma

10. Other cardiovascular 10. Other musculoskeletal

 Depression is a clinically significant and growing national public health
issue.

 An estimated 1 in 6 adults have experienced a 'common mental disorder'

like depression or anxiety in the past week.

 Costly to the individual, their family and community, and represents a

significant loss of human capital.

 Depression places significant demands on primary care services in terms of

time and resources.
Depression: sources of incident cases in participants with hospital, primary care and mortality data

Hospital 10 care

21.3%
29.0% 49.6%
0%
0.1% 0%

0.1%

Death
 Major depressive disorder (MDD) defined from primary care records was
compared with other measures of depression and validated using the MDD
polygenic risk score (PRS).

 Using prescribing records, treatment resistant depression (TRD) was defined

from at least two switches between antidepressant drugs, each prescribed
for at least six weeks.

 Study demonstrated that MDD and TRD can be reliably defined using
primary care records and provides the first large scale population
assessment of the genetic, clinical and demographic characteristics of TRD.

 These data can be also used to identify patients with TRD and study their
phenotypic and genetic characteristics compared with non-TRD.
 T2DM
Statin
medication T2DM dx
medication 2-hr
Triglycerides
glucose
Dysglycemia FPG
Cholesterol Dyslipidemia

Non-fasting HbA1c
HDL
cholesterol Glucose

HOMA-IR
NAFLD diagnosis
Metabolic
Insulin Resistance
Health
BP
C-peptide
Low grade
Hypertension inflammation
diagnosis
Cytokines
Hypertension CRP ESR
medication
THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find me at:
@RCaleyachetty
rishi.caleyachetty@ndph.ox.ac.uk