Weighting health-related estimates in the GCAT cohort and the general population of Catalonia.
| Title: | Weighting health-related estimates in the GCAT cohort and the general population of Catalonia. |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Blay N; Genomes for Life-GCAT Lab, CORE Program, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.; Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain.; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain.; Carrasco-Ribelles LA; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain.; Unitat de Suport a la Recerca Metropolitana Nord, Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol), Mataró, Spain.; Fundació Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol), Barcelona, Spain.; Farré X; Genomes for Life-GCAT Lab, CORE Program, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain.; Iraola-Guzmán S; Genomes for Life-GCAT Lab, CORE Program, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain.; Danés-Castells M; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain.; Unitat de Suport a la Recerca Metropolitana Nord, Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol), Mataró, Spain.; Violán C; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain.; Unitat de Suport a la Recerca Metropolitana Nord, Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol), Mataró, Spain.; Fundació Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol), Barcelona, Spain.; Direcció d'Atenció Primària Metropolitana Nord Institut Català de Salut, Barcelona, Spain.; Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.; de Cid R; Genomes for Life-GCAT Lab, CORE Program, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain. rdecid@igtp.cat.; Grup de Recerca en Impacte de les Malalties Cròniques i les seves Trajectòries (GRIMTra), Badalona, Spain. rdecid@igtp.cat. |
| Source: | Scientific reports [Sci Rep] 2025 May 16; Vol. 15 (1), pp. 16984. Date of Electronic Publication: 2025 May 16. |
| Publication Type: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Journal Info: | Publisher: Nature Publishing Group Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101563288 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 2045-2322 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 20452322 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Sci Rep Subsets: MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Original Publication: London : Nature Publishing Group, copyright 2011- |
| MeSH Terms: | Health Status*; Spain/epidemiology ; Humans ; Female ; Male ; Adult ; Middle Aged ; Aged ; Cohort Studies ; Health Surveys ; Young Adult ; Adolescent ; Prevalence ; Life Style |
| Abstract: | Population-based cohorts play a key role in personalized medicine. However, it is known that cohorts are affected by the "healthy volunteer bias" where participants are generally healthier than the broader population, compromising its representativeness. Here, we assess the healthy bias, identifying bias key indicators for representativeness of the GCAT cohort, encompassing 20,000 adult participants of Catalonia, and generating survey raked weights to enhance the cohort's comparability. To assess and correct the bias, we compare multiple variables across sociodemographic, lifestyle, diseases and medication domains. Electronic health records of Catalonia (SIDIAP), the Health Survey of Catalonia (ESCA) and registers from the statistics institute of Catalonia (IDESCAT) and Spain (INE) were used to make the comparisons. We observed that the GCAT cohort is enriched in women and younger individuals, people with higher socioeconomic status and more health conscious and healthier individuals in terms of mortality and chronic disease prevalence. Raked survey weighting identified sex, birth year, rurality, education level, civil status, occupation status, smoking habit, household size, self-perceived health status and number of primary care visits as key weight variables. On average, raked weights reduced the differences by 70% for compared variables, and by 26% in disease prevalence estimates. We can conclude that the application of raked weights has enhanced the cohort's representativeness, improved comparability, and yielded more precise estimates when analysing GCAT data.; (© 2025. The Author(s).) |
| Competing Interests: | Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval: The GCAT study was approved by the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital Ethical Committee (CEIC-HGTP) on April 26th, 2013 (PI-13-020). SIDIAP Data Use was approved by the Scientific and Ethical Committees on December 18th, 2019 (19/518-P). |
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| Grant Information: | PI18/01512 Instituto de Salud Carlos III; PI19/00535 Instituto de Salud Carlos III; SGR 01537 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR); TED2021-130626B-I00 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación |
| Contributed Indexing: | Keywords: Bias; Cohort; GCAT; Population health; Raked weights; Representativeness |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20250515 Date Completed: 20250516 Latest Revision: 20250518 |
| Update Code: | 20260130 |
| PubMed Central ID: | PMC12081912 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-025-01284-9 |
| PMID: | 40374680 |
| Database: | MEDLINE |
Journal Article