Volume 56 | November 30, 2022
A program of NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
(For your vote to count, you must register or log in to your HeroX account.)

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is championing a bold vision of data sharing and reuse. The HeroX DataWorks annual challenge showcases the benefits of research data management while recognizing and rewarding teams whose research demonstrates the power of data sharing or reuse practices to advance scientific discovery and human health. FASEB and NIH seeks new and innovative approaches to data sharing and reuse in the fields of biological and biomedical research.

N3C Public Health Answers to Speed Tractable Results (PHASTR)

Help address COVID questions that will have a significant impact on public health!
Accepting proposals now in the N3C Enclave!

The N3C Public Health Answers to Speed Tractable Results (PHASTR) addresses high-impact COVID-19 questions. Individuals or teams with appropriate expertise, experience, and resources can submit a proposal to answer the questions. N3C PHASTR works through a subcontract mechanism. Those with successful proposals will work through NCATS’ contractor Axle (as a subcontract) to complete the work. Additional questions will be released in the near future. Go to https://covid.cd2h.org/phastr to learn more.

In case you missed the PHASTR Q & A Webinar, watch it now!
New applications for other public health questions are to be released soon!

N3C PHASTR is also funded in part by the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences. 
Recent Publications



Published works using N3C data are listed on the N3C Cohort Exploration Dashboard. The Publications tab displays titles and links to fully published articles, articles online ahead of print, and published preprints, as well as a list of accepted conference presentations and posters.
CMS Training
Through a generous grant from Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) OS-Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (OS-PCORTF), the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) is pleased to announce the inclusion of de-identified linked CMS Medicare data to the existing 19 billion rows of mortality, viral variant, and clinical data in the Enclave. The addition of CMS Medicare data is an exponential leap in the scientific potential of N3C. The collaboration not only strengthens the overall capacity of the Enclave, but also resolves the issue of missing visits for patients that get their care from multiple providers.  

The initial CMS data contains over 240K COVID-19 patients and will be updated on a monthly basis. The number of CMS patients represented is dependent on sites participating in the NCATS PPRL linkage initiative, and as additional sites implement the tokenization process the number of patients will increase.  
 
Investigators registered with N3C and whose institutions have signed the NCATS Data Use Agreement will be eligible to submit a Data Use Request project proposal in the Enclave to access the CMS data.  
N3C In Depth CMS Training - Monday, December 12, 2022 at 9am PT / 12pm ET
Take a deeper dive into the CMS data during a live N3C CMS Webinar training that will be held on Monday, December 12 at 9am PT / 12pm ET - register here.


For Questions about CMS Data
N3C Office Hours - Thursdays
Investigators can also attend office hours with a CMS data subject matter expert on Thursdays at 10am PT/ 1pm ET, registration information can be found at https://covid.cd2h.org/support. Information on accessing these and other PPRL datasets can be found in the N3C PPRL training module (enclave access required)
IRB Approvals for the N3C Clinical Pilot

We are pleased to announce that the The John Hopkins Institutional Review Board (IRB), the N3C central IRB, and the NIH IRB (as the Enclave steward) have approved the N3C Clinical protocol. The N3C Clinical protocol is an EHR Data sharing pilot not specific to COVID, and will expand N3C to be available for research on all conditions, the National COVID/Clinical Cohort Consortium (N3C Clinical). The pilot will inform the level of effort required to expand beyond COVID-19 as well as the level of interest across the CTSA/CTR networks. Two features distinguish N3C Clinical from its predecessor, the COVID restricted N3C: 1) Sites will transmit patients with a “longitudinal” phenotype, meaning patients are seen on site regularly over time, rather than selecting for COVID patients and controls; and 2) contributing sites will retain full agency over who uses their contributed data and for which projects. Contributing sites will also participate in the project approval process, with community-based governance having veto authority over projects before they are submitted to the federal Data Access Committee.
What the Research Community is Saying about N3C
Ned Mossman, MPH
Director, Social and Community Health, OCHIN
“Working with the N3C SDOH Domain team has provided the opportunity to collaborate with a brilliant group of researchers and data experts across the country. The SDOH team is helping to ensure that as we respond to the enormous public health challenge of COVID, both clinical and non-clinical factors are included in the evidence base. The issues around health equity and disparities laid bare by the pandemic must be prioritized as we assemble and evaluate data for efforts like N3C. This team has demonstrated a commitment to finding rigorous, innovative, and collaborative approaches to representing data that better reflects the risks to underrepresented communities.”
Great to See You at the CTSA Program 2022 Fall Meeting!
It was great to see so many of our colleagues at the CTSA Program meeting held September 21-22, 2022.
The National Center for Data to Health presented to the CTSA Steering Committee, the program’s accomplishments, sustainability plans and future for the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C). A poster was also presented during the session that highlighted resources that are available to assist researchers, clinicians, and analysts with access to EHR data, identify resources across the CTSA using the Resource Discovery Portal, evaluate an organization’s maturity and training on how to use EHR data.
Highlights from the AMIA Annual Symposium 2022





Sofia Dard, Peter Leese, Ben Amor, Chewbacca, Emily Pfaff, Andrew Girvin, Richard Moffitt, Saad Ljazouli, Stephanie Hong, and Anita Walden
In the summer of 2022, undergraduate researchers Louise Scott-Dixon of Virginia State University and Dlaino Hanson of Bowie State University joined with graduate mentors Tijani Musa from George Mason University and the University of Virginia’s Ethan Assefa to investigate inequities in the allocation of care and treatment in COVID–19 patients. 
Dlaino Hanson
Ethan Assefa
Louise Scott-Dixon
Tijani Musa
The group was part of the Data Justice Academy (DJA), a UVA School of Data Science summer diversity pathway program. Using data from the NIH-NCATS funded National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) clinical data repository, the team looked at disparities in hospitalization after an emergency department visit, disparities once hospitalized, and disparities in receiving treatment across race/ethnicity while controlling for social determinants of health. The team was able to examine care practice data points in over 6 million COVID-19 patients, allowing the researchers to generate hypotheses about major health inequity issues. Mentorship for the team was provided by Johanna Loomba, Suchetha Sharma, and Donald Brown from the integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia (iTHRIV), an NIH-NCATS funded CTSA hub (UL1TR003015).
Donald A.B. Lindberg Award

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) announced the 2022 Signature Award and Leadership Award recipients.
 
Mayo Clinic researcher Hongfang Liu, Ph.D, received the Donald A.B. Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics. This award recognizes people at any career stage for a specific technological, research, or educational contribution that advances biomedical informatics.
Mayo Clinic
ACMI Distinguished Fellow 2022

The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) has named four Distinguished Fellows who will be formally recognized at ceremonies during the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2022 Annual Symposium.

This recognition program began in 2020 and aims to recognize senior Fellows who have made significant and sustained contributions to ACMI in areas such as policy formulation, the practice of informatics, and applied research, as well as direct service to ACMI. 
Johns Hopkins University
Enclave Support for the December and January Holidays

Palantir support team will provide reduced coverage from December 19, 2022 through January 1, 2023 (Winter break). If you experience platform issues or outages that are preventing you from completing your work, please file an Issue within the Enclave and set the priority to Critical. A member of our on-call support will get back to you. For all other non-urgent issues, we will respond when we return in early January. Have a wonderful holiday!


December 24th and 25th (Christmas):
Support team will provide critical support only.  
Critical issues and platform outage support only (one person from Palantir team will be on call).
  • If users experience outages that are preventing them from completing their work, they can file an issue within the Enclave and set the priority to Critical. There will be a person on call for platform outages and critical issues.

December 31st to January 1st (New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day)
Support team will provide critical support only.  
  • Critical issues and platform outage support only (one person from Palantir team will be on call).
  • If users experience outages that are preventing them from completing their work, they can file an issue within the Enclave and set the priority to Critical. There will be a person on call for platform outages and critical issues.
 
January 16th (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)
Support team will provide critical support only.  
  • Critical issues and platform outage support only (one person from Palantir team will be on call).
  • If users experience outages that are preventing them from completing their work, they can file an issue within the Enclave and set the priority to Critical. There will be a person on call for platform outages and critical issues.


Note:
The Community Forum will not take place during the week of January 1st and January 16th due to federal holidays.
N3C In the News

News Medical Life Sciences: Do SSRIs lower the risk of long COVID? (November 15, 2022)
In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers conducted a retrospective study to determine whether selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) with immunomodulatory and antiplatelet properties can decrease the risk of post-acute sequelae of coronavirus disease 2019 (PASC) (COVID).
If You are Interested in N3C Research Results and Conversations 
Attend the Community Forum!

Please register for your Community Forum meeting link. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email from cd2h@uw.edu containing information about joining the meeting and you will also have the ability to download the .ics file to create calendar reminders for future Community Forums.
Register for the Community Forum at https://covid.cd2h.org/forum
Events

N3Community Forum

Presentations take place on select Mondays from 5–6 p.m. ET/2–3 p.m. PT. To attend these and future N3Community Forum presentations, please register here.

Missed an N3Community Forum or want to revisit a past Forum? You can find all the videos on our YouTube page.

December 5, 2022
Topic: Musculoskeletal Associated Post-acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2
Presenter: Joel Gagnier, PhD
Western University

December 12, 2022
Topic: Malnutrition and Covid-19 Outcomes
Presenters: Corrine Hanson, PhD, and Jana Ponce, PhD
University of Nebraska
Help Us Give You Attribution for Your N3C Publications!

When you have a research product that is ready for publication or accepted for presentation, please submit it via the N3C Publication Intent Form, which will notify the Publication Committee of N3C output to be registered. (Research products include: manuscripts, posters, conference papers, blogs, press releases, podium presentations, etc.)

Per the N3C Attribution and Publication Principles, all manuscripts using N3C community resources must be reviewed by the Publication Committee. Non-manuscript products do not require review but should be submitted after they have been accepted by the conference to allow for promotion and tracking of collaborator accomplishments.

View the Publication Review web page for more details.
N3C Domain Teams

N3C Domain Teams enable researchers with shared interests to analyze data within the N3C Data Enclave and collaborate more efficiently in a team science environment. They include multidisciplinary Clinical Domains composed of subject matter experts, statisticians, informaticists, and machine learning specialists who focus on clinical questions surrounding COVID-19's impact on health. Cross-Cutting Domains have a varied focus that applies to multiple domains. These teams provide an opportunity to collect pilot data for grant submissions, train algorithms on larger datasets, inform clinical trial design, learn how to use tools for large-scale COVID-19 data, and validate results. N3C encourages researchers of all levels to join a Domain Team that represents their interests, or to suggest new clinical areas to explore.


Offboarding

As we have recently crossed the 2-year mark for the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a good inflection point to identify colleagues who have completed their efforts with CD2H/N3C projects and have transitioned to other great opportunities. If this is you, or perhaps your colleague, we would like to ask that you complete this 2-minute form (Bit.ly/cd2h-offboarding-form) to offboard CD2H and or N3C projects. You can continue to just get the newsletter if you wish.

We thank you for your tireless efforts in CD2H/N3C projects and look forward to working with you on many other projects.
Reporting Concerns

In the event that you come across activities that pose misalignment with the principles outlined in the Community Guiding Principles for the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), you can privately notify us using the Report Conduct Concerns form located on the N3C website under the SUPPORT menu. Your feedback is important and we will take prompt and confidential action to address your concerns. All data management incidents should also be reported to NCATS. Thank you for your contribution!
The National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) is a complementary and synergistic partnership among the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program hubs, the National Center for Data to Health (CD2H), distributed clinical data networks (PCORnet, OHDSI, ACT, TriNetX), and other partner organizations, with overall stewardship by NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The N3C aims to improve the efficiency and accessibility of analyses using a very large row-level (patient-level) COVID-19 clinical dataset, demonstrate a novel approach for collaborative pandemic data sharing, and speed understanding of and treatments for COVID-19.
CD2H is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) 
at the National Institutes of Health
(Grant U24TR002306).