- Home
- Administrative data
- Our research
- About us
- Contact us
- News and events
- 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
- 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 - The value of social science and administrative data research in Scotland: how we are helping respond to COVID-19
- DATA INSIGHTS - Exploring illegal drug consignments in Scotland
- DATA INSIGHTS -Linking two administrative data sets about looked after children
- NEWS – ADR Scotland data ambassadors launched
- The importance of administrative data
- Virtual Conference - Data Linkage: Information to Impact
- 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 - Exploring the potential of synthetic data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Automatic Coding of Occupations: Methods to create the Scottish Historic Population Database (SHPD)
- DATA INSIGHTS - Selective schools: do they improve health?
- EVENT - Active Travel: New Data, New Insights
- EVENT - Holyrood Evidence Week: Doing Data Better for Policy and Public Good
- BLOG - Geospatial Ambitions
- BLOG - Taking historical death records and developing a database for future analysis
- DATA INSIGHTS - Community mortality due to Covid-19
- 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 Katherine Falconer
- ADR Scotland publishes its strategy for 2022-2026
- 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
- IPDLN Conference - Data linkage research: informing policy and practice
- 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
- DATA INSIGHTS - Analysing a season of death and excess mortality in Scotland’s past
- EVENT - ADR UK Virtual Half Day event
- Event - Public data for public good: towards better understanding children's lives
- NEWS - Data research initiative secures £90 m funding extension
- NEWS: Our role supporting the new Covid-19 research data service in Scotland
- Spotlight on Michelle K Jamieson
- Webinar - An Introduction to Looked-After Children Dataset
- 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 - 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 - 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
- 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
- SafePod Network
Spotlight on Laurie Berrie
We hear from Laurie about life working as a Research Assistant in the Lifelong Health and Wellbeing team and the challenges of working with administrative data.
My name is Laurie Berrie and I’m based at the University of Edinburgh, where I started working in 2020 as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Health and Wellbeing. My research interests are in health data science, health geography, and causal inference with observational data. Generally speaking, I am involved in all stages of the projects I am working on; from getting data access permissions and ethical approval, to analysing data, submitting a paper and completing public engagement.
I joined SCADR just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, which means I have mainly been working from home. I really think everyone who has persevered through the pandemic, whether they had just recently joined or had been with SCADR for several years, should recognise what a great professional accomplishment this is. They should be especially proud of themselves for surviving having no face-to-face contact with colleagues or their research lead.
We asked Laurie the following questions to find out more about her role; the challenges she faces and what she does outside of work.
What research projects are you doing at present?
Currently I am involved in two projects. The first is about the impact that positive youth development (PYD) activities can have on outcomes in later life. We are specifically exploring the impact of participation in structured informal education movements may have on health in adulthood. Examples of the informal education clubs we are researching include Scouts, Guides, Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade (including Girls' Guildry). We analyse whether taking part in these clubs is related to self-reported health outcomes in mid-life and whether this can effect their socioeconomic position in adulthood. We intend to expand this project to look at the effect going to these clubs has on mental health.
The second project is about how different modes of commuting affect our health. We use linked census and NHS data to answer these four research questions:
- Is long distance commuting associated with poor mental health?
- Does road congestion have negative effects on mental health?
- Is using underground commuting related to birth outcomes?
- Does active commuting by bike causally benefit mental health?
What is a typical day like?
A typical day for me can look very different depending on where we are with a project. At the moment, I am in the data analysis phase of our fourth commuting project research question. Up to this point, I have spent a lot of time “in” the data “cleaning” it to prepare it for this stage – the analysis stage should progress quicker than the “cleaning” stage, if I have done it well! For both of these stages I have been immersed in the statistical programming package, R, which I access through a secure connection to get to where the anonymised data are held.
What challenges have you had to overcome with the latest project?
Using administrative data, there are so many data challenges to overcome and account for! From the long process of getting access to the data to issues with quality and missingness – the data cleaning and pre-processing part of a project can bring up all sorts of questions and compromises. Before starting this role, my research had mostly used simulated data that I had created to avoid these issues so I could assess how different methods performed under specific scenarios. It has certainly been very interesting discussing and deciding how to approach some of these features of administrative data.
What do you like most about your job?
The thing I like most about my job is the problem solving. As I mentioned previously, there are many challenges in attempting to answer our research questions, but this is also what makes my job really interesting. This alone is satisfying and helps me enjoy my job day-to-day, but knowing that what I do can impact population health and wellbeing is really what drives me.
Why did you decide on a career in data?
I knew I would study mathematics at university from when I was about 10. Starting my undergraduate degree, I didn’t know what it would lead on to and I wanted to keep my career options as open as possible. My first job out of university was as an information analyst for the NHS and with many of the women in my family being nurses, I have always had an interest in healthcare. For a while, I even thought about studying medicine but in the end, I turned down a place on a graduate entry medicine course for an MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics which then led onto a PhD. I haven’t looked back!
What do you like to do when you aren’t working?
Whilst I now consider my home to be Edinburgh, I grew up in a small town in Cumbria on the edge of the Lake District. One of my favourite things to do is to create Ruskin Lace which is a craft very local to where I was brought up. My other hobbies are quite different to this! I am currently training for a strongwoman competition so you will often find me at the gym where I am also a member of a women’s powerlifting club, otherwise, I can be found curled up on the sofa with our adopted cat Socks.
This article was published on 10 Jan 2022