UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) is the national Trusted Research Environment (TRE) for longitudinal research.  Led by the Universities of Bristol and Edinburgh, in collaboration with UCL, Swansea University and the University of Leicester, it is a collaborative endeavour with many of the UK’s most established longitudinal studies.

UK LLC’s mission is to provide a data linkage resource to its partner studies and to provide a simple one-application process to UK based researchers applying to access linked longitudinal data.

This unique resource enables cross-sector research and supporting research responses to immediate situations and future policy needs. The greater availability of large scale, diverse linked data will help provide numbers for researchers to study rarer outcomes and seldom reached populations.

UK LLC’s TRE approach helps ensure that data it holds is secure, transparent and subject to the ‘Five Safes’ set of safeguards. The partnership includes a strong public contribution with members of the public and study participants informing decision-making and design.

UK LLC is preparing to make data available, within its Trusted Research Environment, for any public good research. Where participant agreement is already in place, plans are underway to link study data with administrative data (for example, education, employment, tax and benefits records).

The studies collaborating in the UK LLC are:

Airwave Health Monitoring Study, Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), Born in Bradford (BIB), English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC) Norfolk Study, Extended Cohort for E-health, Environment and DNA (EXCEED), The Fenland Study, Generation Scotland, Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression Study (GLAD), The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS), Next Steps, Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA), MRC National Survey of Health and Development Cohort/1946 Birth Cohort (NSHD/1946BC), National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) BioResource COVID-19 Psychiatry and Neurological Genetics (COPING) Study, Southall and Brent Revisited (SABRE) (non-linked data only), TRACK-COVID Study, TwinsUK, Understanding Society – the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS).

Datasets

UK LLC is designed as a four-nation interdisciplinary data resource: pooling data from many Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS) and systematically linking to participants health (NHS), administrative (e.g., education, employment, tax, benefits,) and environmental (physical and built environment) data.

UK LLC has collated rich pre-pandemic and pandemic phenotype and ‘omic data from more than 20 UK longitudinal population studies and >300,000 participants, collected over many decades, and linked with NHS health records. The study data is varied and includes 350+ study-collected data tables.

The NHS England data currently available is COVID-19 relevant, including but not limited to Primary Care GPES Data for Pandemic Planning and Research, Hospital Episodes Statistics, Mental Health Services, Testing and Vaccination data. A full list of datasets is available here: Datasets | UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (ukllc.ac.uk).

UK LLC datasets in the Innovation Gateway

UK LLC data uses in the Innovation Gateway

Work is underway with our collaborators at the University of Leicester to include environmental exposure data. Pandemic and pre-pandemic exposure estimates have been modelled for air pollution levels, information on access to green spaces e.g. parks, and noise pollution.

Enquire via the HDR UK Innovation Gateway or email the UK LLC Applications Team – access@ukllc.ac.uk

Further Information

Website: https://ukllc.ac.uk/
Follow us on Twitter: @UKLLCollab
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ukllc/

UK LLC is run by the Universities of Bristol and Edinburgh, in collaboration with UCL, SeRP UK, University of Leicester and Swansea University. It is part of the COVID-19 Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing National Core Study, which is run by UCL and the University of Bristol. This work is funded by UKRI.

UK LLC uses data provided by study participants and patients collected through longitudinal studies, or as part of their care and support.