Category 42
Health outcomes ⏵ Externally sourced health outcomes ⏵ Algorithmically-defined outcomes

Description

This category holds classification of selected health-related events, obtained through algorithmic combinations of coded information from UK Biobank's baseline assessment data collection along with linkage data, including:

• Self-reported medical condition codes (Field 20002) reported at the baseline assessment
• Hospital admissions; diagnoses and procedures (Data-Coding 2000)
• ICD-10 codes in Death Register records (Field 40001, Field 40002)

The classification is intended to help researchers to include health-related outcomes in their analyses without having to select lists of diagnostic and/or procedural codes and combine the different data sources themselves. It is based on algorithms developed by the UK Biobank outcome adjudication group, aiming to classify disease outcomes with high positive predictive value (i.e. a high probability that people classified as being positive for a health-related event have indeed experienced that event). Where possible, we provide the best available information on the estimated positive predictive value of each source or combination of sources so that researchers can use this information in their analyses - see Resource 593.