News

UK LLC protocol paper published in IJPDS

20th Feb 2025

The UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) protocol paper is now published. You can read the full news summary or the full article in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS)

This protocol paper sets out the manual for how UK LLC works. It is important to do this so our methods are transparent to research users, to other Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS) and to participants of UK LLC partner LPS.

Developing this protocol has been a team effort. UK LLC is a partnership that involves over 20 LPS and their expert staff, SeRP infrastructure specialists, environmental exposure modellers, and the central team of data curators, governance and public involvement experts.

Data curators and governance teams from many government departments have been essential to UK LLC’s development and their contribution has enabled new combinations of data to be linked.

This protocol represents investment from a very wide range of experts and epitomises the “Team Data Science” approach championed by the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) in its conferences and through IJPDS.

We are delighted to publish this protocol in the International Journal of Population Data Science given the contribution of the community to developing the concepts that informed its design and development.

UK LLC is now encouraging applications from both longitudinal researchers and analysts who use large datasets as part of their research and are interested in the depth of detail present in linked LPS datasets.

With over 325,000 participant records in the Trusted Research Environment, datasets can be viewed via UK LLC Explore, and UK LLC Guidebook providing a comprehensive user guide and growing set of data documentation. Applications are made via the UK LLC Application System and the UK LLC is currently free to access for early adopters.