Data linkage for public health research – the Fforestfach tyre fire

Background The Fforestfach tyre fire started on the 16th of June 2011 and continued to burn for 22 days.
 Smoke from tyre fires contain a number of chemicals that might cause health problems, especially for people who already have long-term health conditions.
 This research investigated whether people living close to the Fforestfach fire contacted their General Practice (GP) more often during the fire than they might have done otherwise. This is important both for the people living in the Fforestfach area and also for those living near similar fires in the future.
 Aim To use advances in mapping and data linkage techniques to assess associations between the Fforestfach fire incident and respiratory and cardiovascular health outcomes. The report focusses on the occurrence of respiratory and cardiovascular Read codes in patient’s GP records.
 Methods Using data linkage, information provided by the Met office was used to identify households likely to have been exposed to above threshold levels of pollution. Residents from these households were linked to their GP records via the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank. Logistic regression models