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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LONGPOP (Methodologies and Data mining techniques for the analysis of Big Data based on Longitudinal Population and Epidemiological Registers)

Teaser

Summary

European societies face rapid social changes, challenges and benefits, which can be studied with traditional tools of analysis, but with serious limitations. This rapid transformation covers changes in family forms, fertility, the decline of mortality and increase of longevity, and periods of economic and social instability. Owing to population ageing across Europe, countries are now experiencing the impact of these rapid changes on the sustainability of their welfare systems. At the same time, the use of the space and residential mobility has become a key topic, with migration within the EU countries and from outside Europe being at the center of the political agenda. Over the past decade research teams across Europe have been involved in the development and construction of longitudinal population registers and large research databases, while opening up avenues for new linkages between different data sources (ie administrative and health data) making possible to gain an understanding of these fast societal transformations. However, in order to work with these types of datasets requires advanced skills in both data management and statistical techniques.
This Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network project, LONGPOP, aims to create network to utilize these different research teams to share experiences, construct joint research, create a training track for specialist in the field and increase the number of users of these largeâ€“ possibly underused â€“ databases, making more scientists and stakeholders aware of the richness in the databases.
The primary research goal is the analysis of the causes and consequences of the rapidly evolving European societies from different disciplinary approaches but via common methodologies and longitudinal analysis techniques.
Moreover, it aims to train a new generation of Early-Stage Researchers (ESR), who are in their first four years of research with no PhD awarded, with innovative and creative skills to face nowadays challenges. The 15 ESR have moved to another country to develop their individual projects. These projects are built in the framework of a broader research. The network, composed by 10 beneficiaries and 1 partner, hosts the 15 ESR providing them training-through-research as well as in-house and external courses. Their professional development is completed by the secondments in the different organisations and in the partner organisation â€“ IECA. A strong emphasis is put in their participation and active contribution to dissemination and communication activities and events, such as conferences, seminars, meetings with non-specialists audiences, etc.

Work performed

The 15 recruited ESRs and their research teams, supported by the partner organisation, are undertaking analyses in the fields of humanities, demography, sociology, informatics, economics, statistics, health and geography, using longitudinal analyses techniques, Big Data, data mining and data linkage, under the common structure of 3 research Working Packages (WPs). The Network is exploiting a large number of historical and actual databases and itâ€™s advancing in the complex process of conceptualising and implementing the intermediate data structure (IDS) to take advantage of the rich information of these databases and to understand social processes through individual life trajectories. The exchange of information and methodologies, the delivery of trainings and the implementation of the Individual Research Projects (IRP) by ESRs are essential to reach a substantial impact on the field of humanities, social sciences and health sciences.
The training programme is being implemented according to the objectives, but also targeted to the ESRsâ€™ needs in terms of research training and skills gap. Apart from the expected training, other courses organised by the network and by other organisations have been offered to ESRs, according to their Career Development Plans. The exposure to the private sector is ensured by the participation of two companies (ESRI and TELNET). The secondments (in the private and/or the public beneficiaries) is increasing the cooperation among teams and the enhancement of fellowsâ€™ knowledge in research methodologies, data management and statistical techniques.
The dissemination and outreach has been implemented through the participation in conferences, seminars and workshops, the publication of articles in peer reviewed journals, the use of social networks and websites, the meeting with non-specialists audiences, etc.
The main two results achieved so far are:
1.1 Catalogue of longitudinal registers (CSIC): it can be used by scholars and private sector to identify existing longitudinal databases that can be used for research in different topics, it helps to identify databases with comparable data and scope.
1.3 Report on Concepts and Techniques for Record Linkage (CSIC): allows to those interested on data linkage on gathering knowledge of the most common practices on this area, with examples from the different LONGPOP databases.
At individual level, the ESRs have produced different results according to their IRP: GIS layers on mortality; improvement of the documentation on databases on the EHSP website; definition of concepts, data models, methods and analytical tools for longitudinal analyses, individual record linkage and data exploitation; working papers and reports on health, sociological and demographic analyses; individual research designs; a catalogue of health-related resources in Spain; a comparative inventory of how addresses have been assigned in the past.

Final results

The project will advance in the methods and techniques for the data management and analyses of longitudinal and epidemiological registers. Moreover, the results of the application of these different methodologies with many databases in the EU will be:
- different GIS layers on mortality, influenza, mobility and marriages
- a GIS mobility tool
- a Data mining and extraction software and supporting documents
- new tools to visualize indicators on different maps and analytic tools
- a Web Portal for Health and Population in Spain
- a special volume of the e-journal Historical Life Course Studies
- new methodologies and techniques for the longitudinal analysis
- reports: on data linkage and IDS, on the extraction software, on data curation, coding and harmonization and on different algorithms and on statistical analyses;
- reports: on socio-econimic status differences in mortality, on long term impact of family context on mortality throughout the life course, on health inequalities, on GIS implementations of addresses, on methods to improve standard class schemes with information on land use and income, on environmental and social changes for multigenerational transmissions and on multilevel modelling of household dynamics
- PhD research designs and research reports
- working papers, articles and other publications.
ESRs will acquire a scientific background characterized by a multidisciplinary approach to common problems in the H2020 agenda such as health, demography, aging etc. The tools, the methodologies and the reports will advance in the knowledge and practical application for data analyses. A new generation of scientists will be prepared to solve current challenges using historical and actual registers. The training of LONGPOP will reproduced to enhance the impact.