Usher Institute

CO-CONNECT showcases value of PPI

CO-CONNECT, a project working with Usher Institute researchers, recently published two videos highlighting the importance and value of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health data research.

The CO-CONNECT project has recently published two videos which highlight the value of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health data research. One from the perspective of the researchers involved in the project, and another from the perspective of CO-CONNECT's Patient Understanding Group. 

This comes not long after CO-CONNECT has successfully on-boarded the COVIDsortium cohort onto the Health Data Research Innovation Gateway’s Cohort Discovery Tool. 

COVIDsortium is the 11th data partner CO-CONNECT has worked with to get their cohorts live and discoverable on the Cohort Discovery Search Tool, a notable list which also includes: 

  • ACE Cohort 

  • ALSPAC (Children of the 90’s) 

  • Co-Stars 

  • Follow-COVID 

  • GASP  

  • Generation Scotland 

  • MATCH 

  • NIHR BioResource 

  • PANTHER 

  • TRACK-COVID 

Patient and Public Involvement in CO-CONNECT 

The first of two recent videos published by CO-CONNECT features three members of the CO-CONNECT team discussing the importance and value of involving members of the public, both to the project and health data research. 

We hear from Principal Investigator, and Usher Institute Director, Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh, PPI Coordinator Dr Tracy Jackson and PPI Lay Lead Antony Chuter. 

Watch - Patient and Public Involvement: What CO-CONNECT has to say

In the second video, we see Public Understanding Group members Kausar Iqbal, Karen Mooney and Koula Prevett discuss their experiences working with CO-CONNECT and with PPI in general. They tell us a little about themselves, including why they started getting involved in PPI and how their input has been actively included in the project thus far. 

Watch - Patient and Public Involvement: What our Public User Group has to say

What is CO-CONNECT? 

The COVID-Curated and Open aNalysis aNd rEsearCh plaTform (CO-CONNECT) is led by researchers from the University of Nottingham, in partnership with Health Data Research UK, with collaborators from the University of Dundee and University of Edinburgh. 

CO-CONNECT project aims to fulfil the demand for new, innovative and efficient data infrastructure to support research into COVID-19, and future areas of interest. It is working to help streamline the process for scientists across the UK to find, access and analyse the data they need for research whilst keeping patient data confidential. 

The Cohort Discovery Search Tool is available on the Health Data Research Innovation Gateway and implements the tools developed by CO-CONNECT, offering a web portal that researchers can login to and run cohort discovery questions, for example, females with asthma. 

The project also prides itself on its commitment to Patient and Public Involvement, with their Public Advisory Group being actively included to ensure that the public’s perspective is heard and acted upon at every stage of the project. 

Where can I find out more? 

Visit the CO-CONNECT website

For a brief overview, visit HDR UK's CO-CONNECT project page

For more on the Cohort Discovery Search Tool, visit the HDR Innovation Gateway's web-page