The 100 million Brazilian linked data and datacentre (360G-Wellcome-202912_B_16_Z)

The proposed biomedical resource will be built around “CADASTRO-UNICO” a database of electronic records of over 100 million applicants to social protection programmes in Brazil. Records consist of detailed individual information on housing conditions, education and income, organized by household and by individuals. Our proposal is to link the individual social and benefits records to electronic health records including: births, deaths, hospitalizations, infectious disease notification and others. The size of the population will enable research on the interrelationships between social factors and health and on the impact of social protection policies on a large range of health outcomes on a degree of detail never done before. The datacentre will be high-powered, secure and have a public interface. This project is possible because Brazil has high quality records and an open, modern attitude towards use of data for research and policy, supported by a rigorous but enabling legal framework. We will create a unique international resource that will allow researchers and policy-makers to address questions that currently cannot be answered. The resource will serve as a beacon for methodological development and training. Our proposed resource has already attracted substantial interest from national and international scientists and policy makers.