Data management and quality assurance for an International project: the Indo–US Cross‐National Dementia Epidemiology Study

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Background: Data management and quality assurance play a vital but often neglected role in ensuring high quality research, particularly in collaborative and international studies.Objective: A data management and quality assurance program was set up for a cross‐national epidemiological study of Alzheimer's disease, with centers in India and the United States.Methods: The study involved (a) the development of instruments for the assessment of elderly illiterate Hindi‐speaking individuals; and (b) the use of those instruments to carry out an epidemiological study in a population‐based cohort of over 5000 persons. Responsibility for data management and quality assurance was shared between the two sites. A cooperative system was instituted for forms and edit development, data entry, checking, transmission, and further checking to ensure that quality data were available for timely analysis. A quality control software program (CHECKS) was written expressly for this project to ensure the highest possible level of data integrity.Conclusions: This report addresses issues particularly relevant to data management and quality assurance at developing country sites, and to collaborations between sites in developed and developing countries. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.