COVID-19 clinical data available for research through new N3C analytics platform
The National Institutes of Health has launched a centralized, secure enclave to store and study vast amounts of medical record data from people diagnosed with coronavirus disease across the country. It is part of an effort, called the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), to help scientists analyze these data to understand the disease and develop treatments. This effort aims to transform clinical information into knowledge urgently needed to study COVID-19, including health risk factors that indicate better or worse outcomes of the disease, and identify potentially effective treatments. The N3C is funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).
For more information about the N3C, visit NCATS’ website: https://ncats.nih.gov/n3c/about.
To request access to the platform’s data:
Click the purple “Access the Enclave” button on the N3C website and follow instructions for first-time users. Your institution must have executed a Data Use Agreement prior to registering (all GP IDeA-CTR partner sites are currently or already have completed this process). Please use your institutional email address when registering. After you register for an account, access is granted within 48 business hours.
Three levels of data are available:
1) synthetic data or a safe data derivative, 2) de-identified data, 3) limited data. If you request limited data, you will need IRB approval from your home institution and must provide documentation of human subject research protection training. If you have questions, follow the drop-down menu to the Support Desk page.
Data Use Requests
A Data Use Request (DUR) is an online application submitted by the researcher within the N3C Data Enclave that describes the scope and nature of the project and justifies the requested data access tier. Approval of the DUR by the Data Access Committee (DAC) is required before a researcher can access data within the enclave. (Approved DURs are valid for 1 year.) Please reach out to Jerrod Anzalone for important information regarding this process or read more here.
Users are encouraged to join one or more clinical domain teams:
Domain teams are multidisciplinary research teams focusing on specific aspects of COVID-19 ranging from diabetes to pediatrics. These teams collaboratively submit data access requests to avoid duplication of efforts and to ensure appropriate expertise while answering questions about the pandemic. See the list of clinical domain teams at the bottom of this Collaborative Analytics page.
Some additional benefits of the N3C Data Enclave include:
- Generating sample data for pilot projects and grant proposals
- Training algorithms on a very large cohort of patients
- Opportunities to train junior researchers (the domain teams can offer support and a network for these investigators)
- Informatics and statistics opportunities for innovation and evaluation
- Opportunities for clinicians to investigate COVID-19 treatment patterns and disease progression
Presentations on N3C:
- The Advance-CTR, Dakota Cancer Collaborative on Translational Activity, Great Plains IDeA-CTR, Mississippi Center for Clinical and Translational Research, and Oklahoma Clinical and Translational Science Institute Present “Building a COVID-19 Analytics Platform to Turn Clinical Data into Knowledge: Introducing the National COVID Cohort Collaborative.” October 28, 2020. Slides available here.
- AMIA October 8, 2020, Journal Club: The National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C): Rationale, Design, Infrastructure, and Deployment. Melissa Haendel, PhD; Christopher Chute, MD, DrPH.