Leveraging real-world data for population health: a proposed North-South collaborative towards a health data science and evidence generation ecosystem

Aims and Objectives: Leveraging big data for filling the gaps in global population health: Building a real-world data-driven evidence generation ecosystem via a North-South data collaborative. Unique and Value Addition: Through an international collaboration (OHDSI) , we have access to harmonised data from >500 million people from 16 databases in the US, Europe and Asia. We have run a number of multinational studies to understand covariates, treatments and outcomes related to COVID-19. However such existing evidence generation efforsts have not traditionally included data from the Global south. Through this work,  a new collaborative has been developed. The growing data partnership includes members from Brazil, Kenya, Gambia, Pakistan, Spain, USA and UK. Additionally international partners include OHDSI, EHDEN, HDRUK Global and other international consortia. Methods: Federated Network Analytics using OMOP common data model. Focus Areas: Women's health and infectious disease. Key Outcomes: 1) Mapping of routinely collected data to OMOP common data model, 2) design and implementation of federated network studies focusing on global and regional health challenges including but not limited to women and child health and infectious disease, 3) capacity building and co-creation of data-driven evidence generation.