Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program

The Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program (BCDSP) was established in 1966. It was the first group to conduct formal epidemiologic research to quantify the potential adverse effects of prescription drugs, utilizing in-hospital monitoring and had a pioneering role in the development and application of methods in drug epidemiology.

Today the BCDSP conducts studies in the field of pharmacoepidemiology using large automated patient databases, including the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD). The BCDSP also made a major contribution to the development and validation of the GPRD and has a unique experience in the design and execution of pharmacoepidemiological studies with this database.

The BCDSP is licensed to receive updated information from the GPRD and to use it for research purposes. Anonymized information from the GPRD on demographics, outpatient visits, hospitalizations and prescriptions dispensed is available to the researchers at the BCDSP. Validation of diagnoses, reports of lab tests and anonymized notes from hospitalizations and referrals can be obtained from the general practitioner upon request. The GPRD has over four millions subjects and over 25 million person-years of data. The BCDSP has worked with the GPRD for 15 years and has published over 150 studies  using the GPRD resource.

The last four issues of "Interact" the newsletter for GPRD contributors  are available: (pdf format)

Interact Issue 1 - January 2002

Interact Issue 2 - June 2002

Interact Issue 3 - January 2003

Interact Issue 4 - April 2005

For further information see the BCDSP website.

For further information on becoming a data contributor see GPRD pages in members only section