TY - JOUR T1 - Completeness and representativeness of small area socioeconomic data linked with the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) JF - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health JO - J Epidemiol Community Health DO - 10.1136/jech-2022-219200 SP - jech-2022-219200 AU - Preveina Mahadevan AU - Mia Harley AU - Stuart Fordyce AU - Susan Hodgson AU - Rebecca Ghosh AU - Puja Myles AU - Helen Booth AU - Eleanor Axson Y1 - 2022/07/28 UR - http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2022/07/28/jech-2022-219200.abstract N2 - Background The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) holds primary care electronic healthcare records for 25% of the UK population. CPRD data can be linked via practice postcode in the UK, and additionally via patient postcode in England, to area-level socioeconomic status (SES) data including the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), the Carstairs Index and the Townsend Deprivation Index; as well as rural–urban classification (RUC). This study aims to describe the completeness and representativeness of CPRD-linked SES and RUC data.Methods Patients currently registered at general practices contributing data to the May 2021 snapshots of CPRD GOLD (n=445 587) and CPRD Aurum (n=13 278 825) were used to assess the completeness and representativeness of CPRD-linked SES and RUC data against the UK general population.Results All currently registered patients had complete SES and RUC data at practice level across the UK. Most English patients in CPRD GOLD (78%), CPRD Aurum (94%) and combined (93%) had SES and RUC data at patient level. Patient-level SES data in CPRD for England were comparable to England’s general population (average IMD decile in CPRD 5.52±0.00 vs 5.50±0.02). CPRD UK practices were on average in more deprived areas than the UK general population (6.06±0.07 vs 5.50±0.02). A slightly higher proportion of CPRD patients and practices were from urban areas (85%) as compared with the UK general population (82%).Conclusion Completeness of CPRD-linked SES and RUC data is high. The CPRD populations were broadly representative of the general populations in the UK in terms of SES and RUC.Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. This study is based in part on data from CPRD obtained under licence from the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The data are provided by patients and collected by the National Health Service (NHS) as part of their care and support. The interpretation and conclusions contained in this study are those of the authors alone.The data that support the findings of this study are available from CPRD, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Requests to access CPRD data are reviewed via the CPRD Research Data Governance (RDG) Process to ensure that the proposed research is of benefit to patients and public health. More information is available on the CPRD website: https://www.cprd.com/safeguarding-patient-data. This study used data from the May 2021 builds of CPRD GOLD and CPRD Aurum with linked SES and RUC data from linkage set 22. On reasonable application to the CPRD RDG, researchers may use this information to assemble the data used in this study. For further information, please contact the study authors in the first instance. ER -