ASTRODEM: Using astrophysics to close the “diagnosis gap” for dementia in UK general practice (360G-Wellcome-202133_Z_16_Z)

£94,008

Dementia is one of the greatest public health challenges of our era. Timely diagnosis allows patients to benefit from current therapies, plan for the future, and maximise their quality of life. However, there is a "diagnosis gap" in UK general practice, with less than two-thirds of expected patients receiving a dementia diagnosis. Increasing diagnosis rates is a strategic aim of the UK government and NHS. We aim to close this diagnosis gap in a novel collaboration between primary care epidemiology and astrophysics. We will use a very large set of UK general practice electronic patient records (96,000 patients; 50% with dementia) spanning up to 10 years per patient. We will use a probabilistic programming framework to apply statistical techniques to model dementia onset in this cohort, allowing for the inherent variability and duration of disease development. To achieve a clinically valuable model, these multi-dimensional data will require sophisticated analysis techniques that are not currently available in medical statistics and epidemiology, but which astrophysicists use daily. Our goal is to develop a statistical model to predict risk of dementia from patients' general practice records, which will help GPs and other NHS bodies better estimate and identify cases in UK general practice.

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Grant Details

Amount Awarded 94008
Applicant Surname Ford
Approval Committee Science Seeds Advisory Panel
Award Date 2016-04-08T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2015/16
Grant Programme: Title Seed Award in Science
Internal ID 202133/Z/16/Z
Lead Applicant Dr Elizabeth Ford
Partnership Value 94008
Planned Dates: End Date 2019-03-31T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2016-10-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country United Kingdom
Region South East