Academic Impact of a Public Electronic Health Database: Bibliometric Analysis of Studies Using the General Practice Research Database

BACKGROUND: Studies that use electronic health databases as research material are getting popular but the influence of a single electronic health database had not been well investigated yet. The United Kingdom's General Practice Research Database (GPRD) is one of the few electronic health databases publicly available to academic researchers. This study analyzed studies that used GPRD to demonstrate the scientific production and academic impact by a single public health database. METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS: A total of 749 studies published between 1995 and 2009 with 'General Practice Research Database' as their topics, defined as GPRD studies, were extracted from Web of Science. By the end of 2009, the GPRD had attracted 1251 authors from 22 countries and been used extensively in 749 studies published in 193 journals across 58 study fields. Each GPRD study was cited 2.7 times by successive studies. Moreover, the total number of GPRD studies increased rapidly, and it is expected to reach 1500 by 2015, twice the number accumulated till the end of 2009. Since 17 of the most prolific authors (1.4% of all authors) contributed nearly half (47.9%) of GPRD studies, success in conducting GPRD studies may accumulate. The GPRD was used mainly in, but not limited to, the three study fields of "Pharmacology and Pharmacy", "General and Internal Medicine", and "Public, Environmental and Occupational Health". The UK and United States were the two most active regions of GPRD studies. One-third of GRPD studies were internationally co-authored. CONCLUSIONS: A public electronic health database such as the GPRD will promote scientific production in many ways. Data owners of electronic health databases at a national level should consider how to reduce access barriers and to make data more available for research

Using spatial analysis to demonstrate the heterogeneity of the cardiovascular drug-prescribing pattern in Taiwan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Geographic Information Systems (GIS) combined with spatial analytical methods could be helpful in examining patterns of drug use. Little attention has been paid to geographic variation of cardiovascular prescription use in Taiwan. The main objective was to use local spatial association statistics to test whether or not the cardiovascular medication-prescribing pattern is homogenous across 352 townships in Taiwan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The statistical methods used were the global measures of Moran's <it>I </it>and Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA). While Moran's <it>I </it>provides information on the overall spatial distribution of the data, LISA provides information on types of spatial association at the local level. LISA statistics can also be used to identify influential locations in spatial association analysis. The major classes of prescription cardiovascular drugs were taken from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), which has a coverage rate of over 97%. The dosage of each prescription was converted into defined daily doses to measure the consumption of each class of drugs. Data were analyzed with ArcGIS and GeoDa at the township level.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The LISA statistics showed an unusual use of cardiovascular medications in the southern townships with high local variation. Patterns of drug use also showed more low-low spatial clusters (cold spots) than high-high spatial clusters (hot spots), and those low-low associations were clustered in the rural areas.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The cardiovascular drug prescribing patterns were heterogeneous across Taiwan. In particular, a clear pattern of north-south disparity exists. Such spatial clustering helps prioritize the target areas that require better education concerning drug use.</p