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Five ways to enhance the diversity and quality of health data

Nature Medicine volume 31, pages 1747–1750 (2025)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 28 February 2025

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The UK Health Data Research Alliance presents five recommendations for improving data collection for inclusive health research.

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Acknowledgements

This Comment presents key insights from the Alliance Special Interest Group on Ethnicity Coding Standards. We are very grateful for the contribution of all group participants, covering a broad range of stakeholder views, including patient and public representatives, the National Health Service and other data providers, academia, researchers, and system-level stakeholders. K.K. is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands, the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, and the British Heart Foundation Centre of Excellence.

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Author notes

  1. These authors jointly supervised this work: Ashley Akbari, Kamlesh Khunti.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Data Research UK, London, UK

    Paola Quattroni, Claire Argent & Uwaye Ideh

  2. Diabetes Research Centre, Leicester Diabetes Research Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Ash Routen & Kamlesh Khunti

  3. NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Birmingham, UK

    Joe Alderman, Samuel Cusworth, Alastair Denniston, Elinor Laws, Xiaoxuan Liu & Jo Palmer

  4. STANDING Together Initiative, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK

    Joe Alderman, Alastair Denniston, Elinor Laws, Xiaoxuan Liu & Jo Palmer

  5. Aldermoor Health Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Hajira Dambha-Miller & Vahe Nafilyan

  6. Office for National Statistics, London, UK

    Rose Drummond

  7. Kings College London, London, UK

    Poushali Ganguli

  8. Understanding Patient Data, London, UK

    Nicola Hamilton

  9. Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Botnar Research Centre, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Sara Khalid & Marta Pineda-Moncusi

  10. University of Oxford, Applied Health Research Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, Oxford, UK

    Aden Kwok

  11. British Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, National Institute for Health Research Blood Transplant Research Unit in Donor Health and Genomics, and British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Alexia Sampri & Angela M. Wood

  12. Usher Institute, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Holly Tibble

  13. Population Data Science, Swansea University Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Health, and Life Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Fatemeh Torabi & Ashley Akbari

  14. Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Faculty of Medicine, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Campus, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Jonathan Valabhji

  15. Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Diana Withrow

  16. National Disease Registration Service, Data and Analytics, Transformation Directorate, NHS England, London, UK

    Claire Welsh

Authors
  1. Paola Quattroni
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  2. Ash Routen
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  16. Vahe Nafilyan
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  17. Jo Palmer
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  18. Marta Pineda-Moncusi
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  19. Alexia Sampri
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  20. Holly Tibble
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  21. Fatemeh Torabi
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  22. Jonathan Valabhji
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  23. Diana Withrow
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  24. Claire Welsh
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  25. Angela M. Wood
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  26. Ashley Akbari
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  27. Kamlesh Khunti
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kamlesh Khunti.

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Competing interests

K.K. is the director of the Centre for Ethnic Health Research, University of Leicester, and chaired the Office for National Statistics Ethnicity Working Group. All other authors declare no competing interests.

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Quattroni, P., Routen, A., Alderman, J. et al. Five ways to enhance the diversity and quality of health data. Nat Med 31, 1747–1750 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03545-6

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