Life Course Obesity Research Informatics Core (LORIC)

The Life Course Obesity Research Informatics Core (LORIC) supports basic, clinical, and translational researchers focused on nutrition and obesity and enhances integration of research into the clinical delivery system.

Objective

The objective of the Life Course Obesity Research Informatics Core (LORIC) is to support nutrition and obesity investigators with large-scale health data to support clinical and translational research activities. The LORIC aims to accelerate translational research by providing access to a large repository of amassed clinical electronic health record (EHR) data; clinical and health information technology (IT) services to integrate research into the “real-world” healthcare delivery setting; and access to banked research data and biospecimens from deeply phenotyped maternal and pediatric research cohorts.

Our services include:

• Access to comprehensive real-world data sources. This includes access to data repository Electronic Health Record (EHR) data to be used by investigators for the purposes of secondary research such as de-identified, limited, or full-PHI custom datasets, feasibility counts, cohort identification, sampling, and custom Tableau visual dashboards. The LORIC also facilitates access to insurance and pharmacy claims at the health system, state, and national level including data sources such as Truveta, PaTH Clinical Research Network, IQVIA, Merative MarketScan Research Databases, and statewide QI collaboratives.
• Consultative and specialized services in health information technology for nutrition and obesity research. LORIC is available to support researchers in the design, development, and deployment of health IT tools for research, guidance on study design and analytic approaches, consultation on regulatory oversight, and staff support for subject recruitment and data/biospecimens collection.
• Access to datasets and banked biospecimens from previous research cohorts that focus on nutrition, obesity, growth, and development over the life course. Prior studies include Healthy Families, Conventional and Metabolomic Predictors of Pediatric Prediabetes & Insulin Resistance, and Early Life Exposures in Mexico to ENvironmental Toxicants (ELEMENT).

If you are interested in using our services, please submit this brief form.

Research Facilities

The U-M Pediatrics and CDI Data Repository (REP00000214) extracts local electronic health record data of patients seen at Michigan Medicine from 2012 to present. Key data elements from the repository include diagnoses, diabetes complications, relevant anti-glycemic medications, data from diabetes devices including meters, continuous glucose monitors, and insulin pumps, longitudinal growth and weight trajectories, patient questionnaires on nutrition, sleep, and physical activity, and social determinants of health.