Background: Common Data Elements (CDEs) are standardized, precisely defined questions paired with a set of specific allowable responses, used in common across different sites, studies, or clinical trials to ensure consistent data collection and enable data interoperability across sites, studies, or trials. While CDEs have been used in National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research for years, their value to increasing the efficiency of research and pace of progress has been highlighted by the urgency of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to develop, adopt, and use CDEs have accelerated at the NIH with leadership from the National Library of Medicine (NLM).
Description: This talk will provide an overview of CDEs and how they can be used to facilitate data sharing and interoperability, enabling integration and meta-analysis of data across multiple studies. This talk will also outline how CDEs have been developed and used to help speed COVID-19 research, and how this work also provided a catalyst to increase adoption of CDE use across biomedical research. In addition, this talk will describe NLM tools and resources for working with CDEs and discuss how librarians can provide support for researchers interested in using CDEs and provide outreach at their institution to increase awareness of the usefulness of CDEs.
Conclusion: As NIH continues to support the use and development of CDEs in patient registries, clinical studies, and other human subjects research through incentives made via funding announcements, awards, contracts, and other resources, CDEs will become increasingly relevant for researchers and the librarians who work with them. Librarians who can provide guidance, outreach, and support for CDEs will be a valuable asset to help improve data quality and enhance research reproducibility at their institution.