Study Network
Data sources
The VAC4EU members have access to data from different sources: in hospital data collection, app-based prospective data collection through patients and a large variety of electronic health care databases in different EU countries.
The structure and content of electronic health care data vary within and between European countries. This heterogeneity requires thorough assessment of the characteristics, data content indicators whether data are fit-for purpose. ADVANCE and VAC4EU had a detailed process to assess the quality of data for each of the data sources. An example of this is published for the ADVANCE data sources
Meta-data
Meta-data are collected about the type of variables, provenance, access procedures and validation/publications. Since meta-data need to be updated regularly in VAC4EU we will rely on the FAIR (findable accessible interoperable and re-usable) open source catalogue provided by Molgenis. Each organization can register and provide information on the data that they can access.
Catalogue
The VAC4EU Catalogue describes metadata on Institutions, Data Sources, Data Banks, Studies and Networks involved in VAC4EU. It is embedded in the Molgenis software and is hosted by the University Medical Center of Groeningen. This Catalogue strives to comply with the recommendations of the MINERVA Project, and in particular to the FAIR principles. Access is currently restricted to VAC4EU members.
