The Airwave Health Monitoring Study of the British Police Forces (Airwave Study)

This proposal is an invited resubmission to provide Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS) infrastructure support for data curation/archiving, and continued maintenance and upkeep of the data and samples collected by the Airwave Study of 50,000 police officers and staff across Great Britain. Airwave is unique worldwide in both scope and depth concerning study of a frontline workforce. It is by far the largest occupational cohort in the MRC cohort directory, includes both men and women, a range of educational attainment from school leavers to graduates and covers a broad age range at baseline from 18 to 65+ years. The cohort is ideally placed for the study of various lifestyle, environmental and occupational exposures and stressors affecting health, disease risk and wellbeing. Potential applications span cancer risk, cognitive effects from TETRA radio use, and occupational exposures such as noise-induced hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, shiftwork, and workplace stress and trauma, which impact mental and physical health. In addition, clinical, genetic and molecular data are available to study biological pathways linked to genetic variants, to clinical phenotypes and disease. We hold the data in a secure ISO27001 certified and NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) compliant environment and have in place strong governance procedures to maintain and manage the data and stored biological samples. We will continue to work to the highest standards to store, maintain and make available the data, and ensure data security and confidentiality. Airwave is an enthusiastic LPS partner in the UK cohort portfolio and contributes over 15% of the participants included in the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UKLLC). As a founder member, we will work closely with UKLLC as well as Population Research UK (PRUK) to further embed Airwave as a critical and central resource in the MRC cohort portfolio. We will curate, check, quality control and link our data across the multiple datasets collected to date, creating a readily navigable research database supported by an updated, enhanced and user-friendly data dictionary. This will provide researchers with the tools to readily interrogate the comprehensive participant (row-level) data, linked across multiple datasets, and identify potential sets of candidates for data analysis and further studies. All datasets will be made available with full metadata and description of relevant data collection methods. We will ensure our data are widely accessible to the research community with ready access through UKLLC and Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), as well as continuing to signpost the study and availability of data through portals such as the Health Data Research UK (HDRUK) Innovation Gateway. As well as linkage to NHS records, our membership of UKLLC provides opportunities to link to other centrally held data such as education and pensions, which will support analyses of the impact of occupational stressors on workforce retention, retirement and drawing benefits. Working with UKLLC and PRUK, we will be at the vanguard of efforts to implement a common ontology, so that researchers can work seamlessly to combine analyses across cohorts. We will continue to engage and involve our participants in the research process and to inform them of progress through the website and newsletters.