Population-Based Data Core Overview
The ASCENT Population-Based Data (PBD) Core leverages existing national datasets to advance palliative care research across the lifespan. The PBD Core addresses challenges in primary data collection for persons with serious illness and those who care for them by enabling researchers to use surveys, claims, electronic health records (EHR), registries, and contextual data to study palliative care delivery, financing, and outcomes.
The PBD Core’s work includes supporting rigorous study design, building infrastructure for data access and analysis, and generating new knowledge to strengthen the evidence base for palliative care.
Core Goals
- Support rigorous research using existing datasets
Provide consultation and training on study design and best practices for analyzing administrative and contextual data. - Build infrastructure and capacity for data-driven research
Develop guidelines for accessing EHR and claims data, share methods for addressing confounding in observational studies, and create tools for palliative care-relevant cost analyses. - Generate and disseminate new knowledge
Characterize confounders in panel studies, develop a directory of secondary data sources, and share code to operationalize palliative care concepts and identify research samples.
