Applying Infectious Disease Research Infrastructure to Chronic Disease Prevention

Westat has coordinated a nationwide virtual research network of healthcare systems and research organizations that delivers relevant patient data to support research on respiratory disease outcomes. The past success of this network in providing critical insights about infectious diseases like influenza has pointed to its potential use for studying chronic diseases. This network approach is now also used to answer other questions about public health priorities. Here, Rebecca Fink, MPH, a Westat Principal Research Scientist for Clinical Research, explains the research, what propels it, and lessons learned from it that can be applied to chronic disease research.

Q. How can Westat’s strong partnerships, which comprise the virtual research networks, be leveraged to enhance chronic disease research?

A. The virtual research networks that Westat has established with health system partners collect clinical data from electronic health records (EHRs) and other data registries and send them to Westat for integration, data cleaning, quality control, and analysis. This has helped us conduct analyses on topics such as respiratory infections in immunocompromised communities and pregnant women. Using a virtual network approach, we can research many other questions, such as those related to chronic disease.

Q. The Westat team develops common protocols to harmonize data collection across multiple sites. How can these methods be applied to chronic disease research, which often requires tracking patients over an extended period?

A. To standardize and harmonize the data, we use a common data dictionary, agreed upon by our investigators, so that values and variables are mutually understood. This has been essential to addressing key questions. But there have been challenges. Some sites may have a single indicator for a specific intervention, while others need to search through physician notes to identify an intervention. Some sites may have different lag times than others in delivering data to us. But we work closely with our site partners to address issues like these. This infrastructure can help us understand other conditions with the use of health record-based case definitions, enabling us to estimate the incidence of diseases and perform future epidemiology studies.

Q. Infectious disease research often requires rapid data collection and response. How can approaches used for real-time surveillance and analysis be adapted to improve monitoring and intervention strategies for chronic diseases?

A. Liaising with our partner sites ensures consistent collection of harmonized data. Our virtual networks also allow for rapid data analysis and reporting. The quick delivery of our findings to our clients can contribute to public health policies that can reduce the impact of chronic diseases.

Q. What strategies from infectious disease research, such as early detection, intervention, and public health messaging, could be used to improve chronic disease prevention and management?

A. By using large databases to identify an infectious disease among a population, we can conduct the data analysis necessary to understand its impact. The same can be true for chronic diseases, and then we can begin to create public health messages about risks and interventions. But we’ll first need a large cohort of people to track, spanning multiple health systems across the country.

Q. What are the implications of this research on everyday Americans’ lives?

A. The research platforms we built to respond quickly to infectious diseases can be just as valuable for tackling chronic diseases. These systems connect hospitals, clinics, and researchers nationwide so they can securely share and analyze patient data in near real time. That kind of speed and coordination can be incredibly helpful for understanding long-term conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma.

For the average person, this means that the tools we used to figure out how to treat and track infections can now help doctors and scientists spot patterns in chronic illness earlier, test new treatments faster, and improve care over time. We can take the same powerful data systems and use them to ask new questions: What care plans are working best? How do different medications perform in the real world? Who needs the most support?

In short, this infrastructure creates a smarter, faster, more responsive healthcare system—not only for emergencies but also for the everyday health challenges millions of Americans face.