Common Data Model (CDM)
Overview
The common data model (CDM) approach in multi-national studies aims to standardize the structure and format of diverse datasets, enabling seamless data integration and analysis across different countries or regions. By aligning disparate healthcare databases into a consistent data model, the CDM approach improves the comparability and interoperability of data. This facilitates collaborative research efforts, allowing researchers to conduct large-scale analyses with greater efficiency and reliability.
CDM can be fitted for a specific study purpose. Study-specific CDM is easier to distribute to different countries, allowing them to convert their data into CDM and generate the results using common analytic codes. Well-known CDM, such as OMOP CDM, Sentinel CDM, and PICORNET CDM, are widely used globally and can be adapted to different kinds of clinical studies.
Selected publications:
Lai EC, Ryan P, Zhang Y, et al. Applying a common data model to Asian databases for multinational pharmacoepidemiologic studies: opportunities and challenges. Clin Epidemiol. 2018;10:875-885. Published 2018 Jul 27. doi:10.2147/CLEP.S149961
