DARWIN EU® - Capturing obesity in DARWIN EU

Study type

• Study topic:
  Disease /health condition
• Study type:
  Non-interventional study
• Scope of the study:
  Disease epidemiology

  Feasibility analysis
• Data collection methods:
  Secondary use of data

Non-interventional study

• Non-interventional study design:
  Cohort

Study drug and medical condition

• Medical condition to be studied:
  Obesity

Population studied

• Short description of the study population:
  The study population will include all individuals present in the database during the study period 01/01/2010 (or start of available data) to 30/06/2025 (or to the end of available data) and with at least 365 days of database history prior to index date (except for individuals in hospital data sources).

Study design details

• Study design:
  retrospective cohort study
• Main study objective:
  1. To assess the proportion of individuals with obesity related conditions (i.e. obesity related disease codes), measurements (BMI, height, weight, waist circumference, cholesterol), observations (lifestyle factors: diet – physical activity) and procedures (bariatric surgery) within the Darwin EU network; ; 2. To characterise reporting of BMI, weight, diet, physical activity within the Darwin EU network in terms of: ; Median number (and IQR) of BMI, weight, waist circumference, diet and physical activity reporting per individual within the study period; To summarise the median (min-max, Q1 and Q3) of individual-level BMI and weight; To assess changes over time in the rate of BMI and weight measurements; ; 3. To describe the characteristics of individuals with obesity based on disease codes vs obesity based on high BMI (BMI ≥30) in terms of demography, comorbidity (i.e. diabetes mellitus, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, renal failure etc), use of concomitant medications (e.g. GLP1 receptor agonists, orlistat, metformin, naltrexone+bupropion), procedures (i.e. bariatric surgery) and lifestyle factors (diet, physical activity, smoking)
• Outcomes:
  For prevalence estimation, outcomes will include condition records of obesity and measurements of BMI, ; weight, height, cholesterol, and waist circumference.
• Data analysis plan:
  The frequency and period prevalence of obesity and obesity-related measurements will be estimated in all individuals in the data sources, overall and stratified by sex and age categories. Characteristics will be described by means of median age, sex, and the covariates of interest, which will be reported as counts and proportions. The statistical analyses will be performed based on OMOP common data model mapped data using the IncidencePrevalence and CohortCharacterisation R packages. A minimum cell counts of 5 will be used when reporting results.