Case study

Alleviate Pain Data Hub

Alleviate, the APDP Pain Research Data Hub, is transforming UK pain datasets to be FAIR and providing data expertise to enable better analysis and ultimately improve the lives of people with chronic pain, as part of a larger national research initiative

Published on 28 May 2025

Chronic pain is defined as pain lasting for three months or longer and is a major unmet global public health challenge. According to 2016 research by the British Pain Society, around 28 million adults in the UK are living with Chronicpain.

Alleviate is the Pain Data Hub for the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP) and is a key resource for the national pain research community. There are many silo of data sets and in various formats throughout the UK, resulting in limited ability to link data between research cohorts. Alleviate is addressing this issue by developing a central resource making research data FAIR; Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable to ultimately improve access to high-quality pain research data and foster collaboration across the pain research community.

HIC's role

The Health Informatics Centre (HIC) is responsible for onboarding data sets to the Cohort Discovery Tool (CDT). Our data engineers harmonize and standardize data to the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) Common Data Model(CDM), making it discoverable via the HDRUK Gateway. This national-scale, consortium-based platform supports discovery and early translational science to address the complexity of pain.

Centra to Alleviate’s design are Patient & Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Partners, who help shape research strategy. HIC champions meaningful PPIE, embedding the patient voice directly into pain-related projects, a model that has significantly contributed to Alleviate’s development and success.

Impact

Alleviate has been recognised by receiving various awards:

6 data sets mapped to OMOP and available on CDT.
5 data sets mapped to OMOP and in testing phase before being available on CDT.
Positive Impact Award, University of Dundee Difference Awards 2024.
Letter of commendation for impactful work in the chronic pain community, Health Data Research UK, 2024.
Hidden role awards, Health Data Research UK, 2024.
Best poster award, APDP Conference 2023.
Hosted the first ever chronic pain conference in Dundee in collaboration with CAPE with STV coverage.
2 successful ‘National Pain Survey’ campaigns (2023 & 2024) in collaboration with Chronic Pain Australia and Pain UK.
Various successful social media campaigns including Pain Awareness Month (2023 & 2024) and ‘My 3 Words’.

“Sharing data across the pain community is key to improving care. The use of metadata and OMOP mapping enables powerful comparisons and has gained strong national and international interest”

Professor Lesley Colvin, Pain Specialist

“People living with chronic pain often feel isolated and stigmatised. It’s great to see a focus on research into pain as this is an orphan area of research.”

Antony Chute, PPIE Lead

You can find out more about Alleviate Pain Discovery Platform on the Alleviate website.

Story category Research