Dementia is a significant public health issue affecting the lives of individuals, families, and wider communities. Diagnosis is often delayed, there are few treatments, and care pathways vary across the UK. The number of people living with dementia in the UK could reach 1.6 million by 2050 with an estimated cost to public healthcare of 47 billion pounds. Enabling better access to health data to improve our understanding of brain health has the potential to improve the lives of people living with dementia. Diagnosis is often delayed, there are few treatments, and care pathways vary across the UK. HDR UK and the Alzheimers Disease (AD) Data Initiative are working with The University of Edinburgh, Public Health Scotland, and Moorfields Eye Hospital to make some of the UKs most comprehensive routine health imaging data more findable and accessible for dementia research projects both within the UK and internationally. The Data Pilots are focused on making high-value UK datasets available to international researchers for secondary data use, chosen because of their potential to answer key research questions about dementia. Moorfields Eye Hospital is leading further development of its AlzEye Dataset, using the infrastructure and data curation capability of the INSIGHT Health Data Research Hub. The University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland are leading the enhancement of SCANDAN, a comprehensive brain imaging dataset. This collaboration will empower UK health data to facilitate research into the prevention and treatment of dementia, by enabling better access to health data and improving our understanding of brain health. This in turn provides the potential to improve the lives of people living with and living alongside dementia.
