The European Health Data Space (EHDS) represents the EU’s most ambitious legal framework for health data. It aims to empower individuals with control over their electronic health data while facilitating its use for both clinical purposes and secondary applications such as research, innovation, and policy-making. The EHDS includes a broad definition of health data, including clinical records, research data from cohort studies and biobanks, and molecular data. The legislation introduces health-data access bodies to streamline secondary data use and establishes new standards for interoperability, security, and equitable access.

 

We are engaged in a use case within the EHDS framework, exploring opportunities and barriers for cross-border health research. Our project empirically tests methods to combine data across Denmark, Norway, Finland, and France, with an aim to develop a prediction model for cardiovascular disease. The EHDS provides researchers with  unprecedented access to diverse datasets, enabling key benefits such as exploring regional health differences, leveraging real-world data for insights, enhancing public-health surveillance, and increasing data diversity for more representative research. To fully realise these advantages, it is crucial to effectively communicate how EHDS-driven research can improve public-health outcomes across Europe.

 

Key publications:

 

• Ganna A, Carracedo A, Christiansen CF, Di Angelantonio E, Dykstra PA, Dzhambov AM, Eils R, Green S, Schneider KL, Varga TV, Vuorinen AL, Zuccolo L, Rod NH, Hoeyer K (2024). "The European Health Data Space can be a boost for research beyond borders". Nature Medicine 30(11): 3053–3056. Link