The CTN Metadata Project

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Canadian HIV Trials Network (CTN) supports twelve vast cohort studies, covering the spectrum of HIV clinical manifestations and affected key populations. Optimal use of the data and biospecimens stored by each of those cohorts, as well as cross-cohort collaborations, are hampered by the lack of a central database and data dictionary describing the scope of the overlapping and complementary data co-collected in each study. Metadata from each cohort was manually extracted from study protocols, case report forms, and data dictionaries. Individual participants’ data was not pooled. In total, over 100 documents were reviewed resulting in 34 tables of variables. Heat maps were constructed to show 15 broad data domains, the variables collected in each data domain, and, for those variables requiring further analysis, the variation in definitions across cohorts. This downloadable resource allows rapid visualization of the areas of overlap between the 12 of the largest HIV-related cohort studies in Canada, promoting new collaborations and secondary use of previously collected data and biospecimens.

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