Building a Cohort in Discover

Why use Discover?

The primary purpose of the Discover page in BDC-PIC-SURE is to support feasibility assessments, or the process of determining whether a study or dataset will work for your research.

Applying for authorization to access participant-level data can be a time-consuming process. The Discover page enables you to investigate datasets on BDC to determine whether they contain the information you are interested in and if there are sufficient participants (a large enough sample size) for your planned analysis. This is a publicly available tool, meaning anyone can perform searches, add filters, and retrieve counts on BDC-hosted data.

How to use Discover

1. Search for the terms or variables related to your planned research project. This could include clinical outcomes, phenotypes, demographics, and more.

2. Apply facets to narrow down your search results. Use the left-hand panel to add facets to your search. This could include selecting specific studies or data types of interest.

3. Learn more about the variable by clicking on the row. When you find a promising search result, you can learn more about the variable by clicking on the row or the "i" icon. This will display the study and dataset associated with the variable.

4. Apply filters. Once you have identified variables, you can apply filters by clicking the funnel icon. This will add inclusion criteria, or "filter down" the cohort of participants.

5. See the aggregate counts of your selected cohort. As you apply filters, you will narrow down the participants in your cohort. This gives you an idea of how many study participants meet specific criteria for your research project.

6. Request access to the study. Once you've identified the study that fits your planned research, you can submit a Data Access Request to dbGaP to obtain authorization to access the data. For more information on how to do this, please refer to Tips for Preparing a Successful Data Access Request documentation.

Tip: Try searching for different terms.

You may need to try a few different searches to find the expected search results. For example, perhaps your search for "IPF" only returned a few variables. You can also try searching for the full name ("idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis") or related terms (such as "interstitial lung diseases").