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- BLOG - Access to secure data during the Covid-19 pandemic - a model for the future?
- Covid-19 and Care Homes: Advances in Administrative Data Research during the pandemic
- DATA INSIGHTS -Deprivation and informal care at the end of life
- BLOG - Reflections on engaging with children & young people about data
- NEWS - Innovative new residential linkage tool launched
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.4
- DATA INSIGHTS - Youth Movements, Social Mobility and Health Inequalities
- NEWS - New report warns of deepening poverty crisis for Scottish families
- New report on Infants Born into Care in Scotland
- Spotlight on Dr Elizabeth Lemmon
- Spotlight on Jan Savinc
- BLOG - Covid-19 fines in Scotland: What we know so far
- BLOG - The value of social science and administrative data research in Scotland: how we are helping respond to COVID-19
- NEWS - Joining together with Research Data Scotland to co-host existing public panel on data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Exploring illegal drug consignments in Scotland
- DATA INSIGHTS -Linking two administrative data sets about looked after children
- NEWS - ADR UK grants 20 PhD studentship opportunities focused on quantitative research using linked administrative data
- NEWS – ADR Scotland data ambassadors launched
- Spotlight on Peter Christen
- The importance of administrative data
- Virtual Conference - Data Linkage: Information to Impact
- An Introduction to Data Science for Administrative Data Research course - March 2023
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No.7
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.3
- DATA INSIGHTS - Investigating the effects of class composition and class size on pupils’ attainment in Scottish primary schools
- NEWS - New opportunity to join ADR Scotland’s Public Panel
- BLOG - Engaging the public through our public panel
- BLOG - Exploring the potential of synthetic data
- Children’s Health in Care in Scotland (CHiCS)
- DATA INSIGHTS - Automatic Coding of Occupations: Methods to create the Scottish Historic Population Database (SHPD)
- DATA INSIGHTS - Selective schools: do they improve health?
- DATA INSIGHTS - Were people who died at home less likely to attend hospital at the end of life during the Covid pandemic?
- EVENT - Active Travel: New Data, New Insights
- EVENT - Holyrood Evidence Week: Doing Data Better for Policy and Public Good
- EVENT - Unlocking criminal justice data in Scotland: Findings from Data First
- IPDLN Conference - Data linkage research: informing policy and practice
- NEWS - Making nursing data available to inform policy
- NEWS - New report on The Impact of Covid-19 on Children’s Care Journeys in Scotland: An Analysis of the Administrative Data on 'Looked After' Children
- NEWS - Updated report on Infants Born into Care in Scotland
- Scout and Guide participation boosts later life health
- BLOG - Geospatial Ambitions
- BLOG - Taking historical death records and developing a database for future analysis
- BLOG - Unlocking criminal justice data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Community mortality due to Covid-19
- DATA INSIGHTS - What makes people more likely to cycle to work?
- Future-proofing investment into administrative data research announced in Scotland
- NEWS - Understanding the dynamics of the nursing workforce: the potential of routinely collected data
- Spotlight on Joanna Soraghan
- Spotlight on Katherine Falconer
- Why misconceptions about population data can lead to bad outcomes
- ADR Scotland publishes its strategy for 2022-2026
- BLOG - Developing and re-shaping our public panel
- BLOG - Review of the recent DWP Areas of Research Interest Workshop
- BLOG: Developing a cross-national research agenda on crime and convictions
- BLOG: Working together to make a difference with data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Homelessness duration in Scotland: how long does rehousing take?
- DATA INSIGHTS - Occupation and COVID-19 deaths: Scotland in a comparative perspective
- DATA INSIGHTS -The health and economic benefits of active commuting in Scotland
- EVENT - ADR UK Conference 2023
- EVENT - RSE The secret world of data
- NEWS - New comic on children's rights and data
- NEWS - Report published on our children’s engagement pilot study
- NEWS - When did fines issued by the police for breaking Covid rules peak?
- Scotland’s portfolios: Research and Statistical Data - building a new approach to thematic data linkage
- Spotlight on Cecilia Macintyre
- Spotlight on Dr Evan Williams
- Spotlight on Fernando Pantoja
- Spotlight on Laurie Berrie
- ADR Scotland Winter Partnership Session - **internal event**
- BLOG - AGEING AND HOMELESSNESS IN SCOTLAND
- BLOG - Can we use linked administrative data to identify social disadvantage?
- BLOG - Commuting and its impact on health
- BLOG - The Dynamics of the Nursing Workforce in the UK: Using data to support our nurses
- BLOG: Growing up in kinship care
- Congratulations to Alastair McAlpine, the new Chief Statistician for Scottish Government
- DATA INSIGHTS - Analysing a season of death and excess mortality in Scotland’s past
- EVENT - ADR UK Virtual Half Day event
- EVENT - HDR UK Conference: Data for global health and society
- EVENT - Introduction to Data Science for Administrative Data Research course (IDS-ADR)
- Event - Public data for public good: towards better understanding children's lives
- NEWS - ADR Scotland's first flagship dataset
- NEWS - Data research initiative secures £90 m funding extension
- NEWS: Our role supporting the new Covid-19 research data service in Scotland
- Spotlight on Gina Anghelescu
- Spotlight on Michelle K Jamieson
- Webinar - An Introduction to Looked-After Children Dataset
- ADR Scotland Away Day (**for staff only**)
- BLOG - An Inside Job: Using Criminology, Police Data and a Lot of Nouse
- BLOG - Improving justice data to promote data justice in Scotland
- BLOG - Location of death in 2020: a changing trend from hospitals to homes
- BLOG - Reflecting on the ADR UK Conference: Insights from our new PhD Researchers
- BLOG - Seeking feedback on Research Data Scotland’s core principles via our public panel
- BLOG - What skills, training and support are required by those wishing a career as an administrative data researcher?
- BLOG No. 9 - Final blog in this 'deaths at home' series
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No. 6
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No.8
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.5
- BLOG: 5 things I've learnt about working with policymakers...
- BLOG: Automating Coding for Large Historical Datasets
- BLOG: COVID-19- How increased deaths at home impact the carer community
- DATA INSIGHTS -Postal deliveries of drugs in Scotland
- EVENT - 'Getting things done with data in government'
- EVENT - Linking public sector data for research: an ADR UK showcase event
- EVENT Seminar - Administrative data for social policy research: potential and pitfalls
- NEWS - ADR Scotland launches new podcast series
- NEWS - Additional funding for Understanding Children’s Lives and Outcomes
- NEWS - Engaging children and young people
- NEWS: Police use of Fixed Penalty Notices under the Covid-19 regulations in Scotland: A new data report highlights links with deprivation and inequality
- NEWS: Police use of the new Covid-19 powers: Using administrative data to analyse and evaluate practice
- Research Data Scotland - New user forum
- Spotlight on Dr Patricio Troncoso
- Spotlight on Renata Samulnik
- Summary of ADR Scotland Winter Partnership session
- Directorship of the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) for 2021-22.
- BLOG: In the light of experience: InterRAI and the final thousand days of life
- Multiple health conditions and social care
- NEWS - Susan McVie elected as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
- SCADR relocates to the Bayes Centre
- EVENT: Four day introduction to using administrative data for social and health research
- BLOG: The value of administrative data: DALYs and the Scottish Burden of Disease study
- BLOG: Where to start with parliamentary and policy engagement
- EVENT - International Conference on Administrative Data Research, Cardiff
- EVENT - Using data to realise the potential of the 'Last 1000 days'
- EVENT: TalkingData: ADR Scotland mini-summit
- EVENT: “Let’s use data to save time, money and lives”: ADR Scotland partners gather for mini-summit
- EVENTS: ADR Scotland researchers present at international conference in Cardiff
BLOG - Access to secure data during the Covid-19 pandemic - a model for the future?
Two researchers, Ben and David, discuss what challenges occurred when staff needed to work from home, due to the pandemic and whether remote access may become the norm?
Pre-Covid working environment
The Covid-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences for the way lots of people work. Administrative data research is no different. Prior to the national lockdown, researchers working on projects with the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research (SCADR) could sometimes only access data via monitored computers in secure locations. Other projects could be accessed remotely via secure internet connections, technically Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) using their university network. The national lockdown caused by the pandemic, resulted in changes being made to allow those with the correct approvals, access to appropriate data for projects remotely – this has successfully been done from researcher's homes.
In some ways, remote access has allowed projects to progress faster than they would have otherwise. Ben Matthew's work in the Safe Haven often required running statistical models which took four or more hours to complete. Ben mostly worked in a different part of the city to the Bioquarter campus where the Safe Settings was located, and so combining this time-intensive work in the BioQuarter with meetings several miles away was often not possible, delaying progress on analysis.
Fortunately for David Henderson, his projects prior to lockdown did not require access to a safe setting, although he needed to access the data from a university computer (Edinburgh Napier). In normal circumstances, David would make fortnightly visits to Edinburgh, from his home in the Highlands to allow him to do that. This was very difficult to juggle all work commitments around the short periods when he had access and analysis was possible. Sadly this sometimes resulted in delays, such as when David's outputs needed changing slightly but he didn't have time to fix them, prior to leaving Edinburgh - so it would have to wait another fortnight.
Getting remote access
Fortunately, one positive change as a result of the pandemic, is that by gaining remote access as approved researchers, both Ben and David could work more efficiently:
"Remote access means that I can fit analytical work in the safe settings seamlessly alongside other work commitments which previously would have slowed projects down." - Dr Ben Matthews, University of Edinburgh
"Remote access has allowed me to complete work safely and quickly, as I was no longer restricted to only gaining access every fortnight, when I visited Napier. This has also greatly reduced the frustration I would feel, when I didn't get my scheduled work done within the specific time." - Dr David Henderson, Edinburgh Napier University
Ironically, in some ways David felt working remotely from home was a safer way of accessing secure data. Using VPNs is a secure method of ensuring a direct link between a researcher’s computer and the data in the safe haven (essentially a tunnel between the two that no-one can break into). To access from home there are a minimum of five security steps to negotiate in order to get into the safe haven. These comprise a mix of home, university and safe haven security passwords or two-factor authentication steps. Whilst it won't be true for everyone, he feels fortunate that he could effectively set up a more secure setting at home than at a university location, as he can remove the risk of anyone else seeing his computer screens – something that is always minimized, but never completely eliminated, in a university setting.
Ben also felt that the IT infrastructure is highly secure and so any risks are at the user-end. However, he was confident that his training ensured that he could work safely with data, before getting access to secure data in any setting. He really enjoyed setting up a secure setting at home, and being recognised as a responsible and trustworthy user.
Making it possible
Ben and David wanted to remind SCADR researchers, that remote access would not be possible without the work of eDRIS research coordinators at Public Health Scotland (PHS) to amend data sharing agreements with data controllers. Access from home during the pandemic was granted via approvals from the information governance bodies that issued each project’s initial approval (one of the two Scottish Public Benefit and Privacy Panels). This meant requesting an amendment to the initial approval which would then be granted by the relevant panel. Some projects were granted this very quickly – others took a little longer to process presumably due to the large volume of requests.
Both Ben, David and the team here at the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research (SCADR) wish to thank the approvals bodies for reacting to the situation and working out solutions that kept the data safe but allowed the research to continue. We would also like to applaud PHS for their efforts in getting remote access up and running in very difficult circumstances.
The Future?
Overall, they both feel remote access has allowed them to conduct their work during the pandemic even more effectively than they were previously able to.
Importantly, the crucial ‘Five Safes’ approach (developed by the Office for National Statistics) to secure data access was maintained with more emphasis on the “safe people” pillar. We believe this is a model that could be used more generally and hope the experience during the pandemic can serve as an example of how this can be done safely, in the future.
This article was published on 03 Nov 2020