Data Expert and Access Partner Working Group (DEAPs WG)

Within the VAC4EU study network, there are 16 partner organisations who provide access to observational healthcare data local to them. Together, they cover over 150 million individuals across Europe. Data collected from such sources can be extremely diverse: they can differ in terms of the characteristics of the source population and country, prompt for data recording, the healthcare setting in which the recording took place, underlying healthcare policies and culture, data dictionaries, and data quality. Therefor, knowledge and understanding of the structure and peculiarities of each local healthcare data source is very important when conducting studies. 

For these reasons, DEAPs play a central role with respect to the generation of reliable real world evidence in VAC4EU. Their expertise is leveraged to actively assist with all steps of the study pipeline, including review of the protocol and statistical analysis plan, script running, review and discussion of results, as well as approval of the final study report. The DEAPs WG was established in February of 2023 out of a need to develop standardized guidelines for procedures relevant to their work.