News

UK-REACH is first Longitudinal Population Study to join UK LLC under broadened purpose 

UK LLC Communications Team

14th Aug 2025

UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) is delighted to announce today that UK-REACH is joining as its latest partner Longitudinal Population Study (LPS). It is the first LPS to join since UK LLC was approved to broaden its purpose to receive applications for a wide range of research in the public good, beyond its original COVID-19 purpose. UK-REACH joins a collection of over 20 established LPS whose participants provide data for public good research. 

Essential investigation of links between ethnicity and COVID-19 outcomes 

UK-REACH is a UK-wide research study investigating how ethnicity affects COVID-19 clinical outcomes for healthcare workers. The study holds data on over 18,000 participants who work in the healthcare sector. They were recruited during and throughout the pandemic, with approximately 30% of people being from an ethnic minority. 

Access to detailed data that will be linked to enhance scientific possibilities 

UK-REACH holds detailed demographic and occupational data, as well as a wide range of health and wellbeing information. At UK LLC, these data will be linked with participants’ health, socioeconomic, demographic and locality data. The combination of this information along with other LPS, provides a much deeper understanding of factors impacting health and wellbeing that allows researchers to identify patterns and themes and address research questions that could not be addressed previously. It is anticipated that any UK accredited researcher will be able to apply to access UK-REACH data from Autumn 2026. 

UK-REACH Chief Investigator, Professor Manish Pareek, is Clinical Professor in Infectious Diseases and Director of the Development Centre for Population Health at the University of Leicester. He says, “I am very pleased that UK-REACH has now joined UK LLC, and I want to thank all our participants for their continued involvement and support. Understanding the health and wellbeing of healthcare staff from diverse occupational and demographic groups is critically important. By studying these issues in depth, we will be able to develop policies and interventions that improve working conditions for the healthcare workforce.“ 

Andy Boyd, Director of UK LLC welcomes the University of Leicester team, he says “I’m delighted to extend a warm welcome to all the team at UK-REACH. The data that UK-REACH has been collecting from healthcare workers since 2021 is incredibly valuable to better understand the differences in clinical outcomes for people from ethnic minority backgrounds. We are extremely grateful to the participants who volunteered to be part of this study and allow information about their own health and wellbeing to contribute to public good research.”  

Strength in partnership 

UK-REACH joins a partnership of UK-based LPS spanning the four nations whose data is held in the UK LLC Trusted Research Environment – its highly secure computing environment operated by SeRP UK at Swansea University’s Population Data Science. New LPS joining UK LLC increases the statistical power of data that aims to improve health and wellbeing service provision. 

Further information can be found here: 

UK-REACH website: https://www.uk-reach.org/main/  
UK LLC website: https://ukllc.ac.uk/