The DOI matches its Crossref record; 131 of the 132 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Using Electronic Health Records for Population Health Research: A Review of Methods and Applications
Open accessAbstract
The use and functionality of electronic health records (EHRs) have increased rapidly in the past decade. Although the primary purpose of EHRs is clinical, researchers have used them to conduct epidemiologic investigations, ranging from cross-sectional studies within a given hospital to longitudinal studies on geographically distributed patients. Herein, we describe EHRs, examine their use in population health research, and compare them with traditional epidemiologic methods. We describe diverse research applications that benefit from the large sample sizes and generalizable patient populations afforded by EHRs. These have included reevaluation of prior findings, a range of diseases and subgroups, environmental and social epidemiology, stigmatized conditions, predictive modeling, and evaluation of natural experiments. Although studies using primary data collection methods may have more reliable data and better population retention, EHR-based studies are less expensive and require less time to complete. Future EHR epidemiology with enhanced collection of social/behavior measures, linkage with vital records, and integration of emerging technologies such as personal sensing could improve clinical care and population health.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Nevertheless, they have weaknesses inherent to an electronic health records study,29 such as the unknown completeness of records, no validation of diagnoses, and sparse information on socioeconomic and lifestyle factors.”
From 6-month neurological and psychiatric outcomes in 236 379 survivors of COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study using electronic health records (2021) · cites this paper as [29]
In the citing paper
“Electronic health records (EHR) can be employed to identify healthcare use and outcomes among specified, large patient groups, which may not be possible through other means [25,26].”
From The Impact of demographic, socio-economic and geographic factors on mortality risk among people living with dementia in England (2002–2016) (2021) · cites this paper as [25]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Social conditions as fundamental causes of disease.
Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. (1995) · Journal of Health and Social Behavior · doi:10.2307/2626958 · Cited by 5,722
A New Initiative on Precision Medicine
Collins, F. S., & Varmus, H. (2015) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmp1500523 · Cited by 5,202
Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis: Objectives and Design
Bild, D. E. (2002) · American Journal of Epidemiology · doi:10.1093/aje/kwf113 · Cited by 3,942
Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Disease
Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. C. (1995) · PubMed · doi:10.13016/rpln-eiwa · Cited by 2,684
The “Meaningful Use” Regulation for Electronic Health Records
Blumenthal, D., & Tavenner, M. (2010) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmp1006114 · Cited by 2,059
Participation Rates in Epidemiologic Studies
Galea, S., & Tracy, M. (2007) · Annals of Epidemiology · doi:10.1016/j.annepidem.2007.03.013 · Cited by 1,877
Mining electronic health records: towards better research applications and clinical care
Jensen, P. B., Jensen, L. J., & Brunak, S. (2012) · Nature Reviews Genetics · doi:10.1038/nrg3208 · Cited by 1,680
Rapsomaniki, E., Timmis, A., George, J., Pujades-Rodriguez, M., Shah, A. D., Denaxas, S., White, I. R., Caulfield, M. J., Deanfield, J. E., Smeeth, L., et al. (2014) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60685-1 · Cited by 1,643 · cited 4×
“Rapsomaniki et al. (103) studied > 1 million UK adults using CALIBER (CArdiovascular research using LInked Bespoke studies and Electronic Health Record) data to evaluate age category– specific risk of 12 acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) related to systolic and diastolic blood…”
MethodResultInfluentialType 2 diabetes and incidence of cardiovascular diseases: a cohort study in 1.9 million people
Shah, A. D., Langenberg, C., Rapsomaniki, E., Denaxas, S., Pujades-Rodriguez, M., Gale, C. P., Deanfield, J., Smeeth, L., Timmis, A., & Hemingway, H. (2015) · The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology · doi:10.1016/s2213-8587(14)70219-0 · Cited by 1,225
Morbidity is related to a green living environment
Maas, J., Verheij, R. A., de Vries, S., Spreeuwenberg, P., Schellevis, F. G., & Groenewegen, P. P. (2009) · Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.2008.079038 · Cited by 1,133
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Choi SK, 2014, J. Res. Med. Sci., 19, 807
- Natl. Heart, Lung, Blood Inst, 2013, Fact Book Fiscal Year 2012, 101
- Trotter F, 2011, Hacking Healthcare: A Guide to Standards, Workflows, and Meaningful Use
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 601–619 of 619
Schwartz, B. S., Hirsch, A. G., Poulsen, M. N., Hathaway, C. A., Schotthoefer, A. M., Sundaram, M. E., Lemieux, J. E., Smith, R. P., Hu, L. T., Battan-Wraith, S., et al. (2026) · Open Forum Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1093/ofid/ofag468
Self-citationGuerra, S. G. (2021) · Knowledge UdeS (Institutional Deposit of the University of Sherbrooke)
Zhang, C., Pang, L., Zhu, Z., Wang, J., & Huang, C. (2026) · Frontiers in Immunology · doi:10.3389/fimmu.2026.1916679
Rios-Duarte, J. A., Pick, T. L., Robson, T. N., Lin, R. J., Todd, A., Brufau, S. R., & Vidal, N. Y. (2026) · Mayo Clinic Proceedings Digital Health · doi:10.1016/j.mcpdig.2026.100394
Fernández, E. I., Chen, K. C., Fernández-Llatas, C., Seoane, F., & Abtahi, F. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-10371372/v1
The Mental Health Impacts of Wildfire Exposure: A Scoping Review of the Quantitative Evidence
Teigen, K., Coomes, D. M., Nori‐Sarma, A., & Casey, J. A. (2026) · Current Environmental Health Reports · doi:10.1007/s40572-026-00547-5
Self-citationSantos, M. P., Theall, K., Shi, L., Bazzano, L. A., & Ley, S. H. (2026) · American Journal of Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.1016/j.ajcnut.2026.101518
Lech, S., yelnosky, S., Guinemer, C., Praßer, F., Bajbouj, M., & Schreiter, S. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-10803202/v1
Big Problems, Big Data, Big Answers
Rider, N. L. (2026) · Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America · doi:10.1016/j.iac.2026.08.010
Big data: from signal to action
Youens, K. E., & Priest, E. (2026) · Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings · doi:10.1080/08998280.2026.2731826
ICD2Bert: ICD Bert Encodings for Clinical Outcome Prediction on Routine Health Insurance DataPreprint
Harriehausen, J., Mäurer, M., Metsch, J. M., Ritter, Z., Weller, L., Pollmann, T., Kretzler, M., Grobe, T., & Hauschild, A.-C. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-10725344/v1
DeWitt, P. E., Russell, S., Feinstein, J. A., Rebull, M. N., & Bennett, T. D. (2026) · JAMIA Open · doi:10.1093/jamiaopen/ooag182
Menopause is a major health milestone, yet health records barely track it - new research
Hendricks, A. E., & Santoro, N. (2026) · The Conversation · doi:10.64628/aai.xtng46ras
Trends in long COVID and post-viral fatigue in children in primary care in England
Raveendran, V., Thorne, C., Jackson, C., D’Souza, R., & Hardelid, P. (2026) · BJGP Open · doi:10.3399/bjgpo.2026.0163
Hamlin, T., Anderson, C., Lantz, J. F., Franck, J., Ohm, H. L. R., & Landry, D. W. (2026) · American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine · doi:10.1177/15598276261486805
Gong, L., Chang, C., Agyekum, A., Aswani, N., Yang, J. Y., Shahinnian, P., Manji, G. A., Kang, S. K., & Hur, C. (2026) · JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics · doi:10.1200/cci-26-00200
The prediagnostic period of Behçet’s disease: a nationwide population-based study
Hassan, F., Abu-Elhija, J., Bayatra, A., Friedrich, Y., Naffaa, M. E., & Israel, A. (2026) · Frontiers in Immunology · doi:10.3389/fimmu.2026.1970448
Aux États-Unis, la ménopause reste largement absente des dossiers médicaux (et c’est un problème)
HENDRICKS, A., & Santoro, N. (2026) · The Conversation · doi:10.64628/aak.h9gr47q4c
Poboży, M., Rulkiewicz, A., Lisik, W., Stojčev, Z., Filipiak-Rokicka, E., Pilchowska, I., & Domienik‐Karłowicz, J. (2026) · Frontiers in Public Health · doi:10.3389/fpubh.2026.1920503
Metadata
- Authors
- Casey, J. A., Schwartz, B. S., Stewart, W. F., & Adler, N. E.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Sutter Health (US)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Public Health
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2016-03-18
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 61-81
- ISSN
- 0163-7525 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2093
- PMC
- PMC6724703
- OpenAlex
- W2140302476
- Cited by
- 590
- References
- 132
- Citations by year
- 2026: 64 · 2025: 62 · 2024: 76 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 75 · 2021: 70 · 2020: 70 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 1.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annual Review of Public Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (K99ES027023, R00ES027023)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Medical Coding and Health Information
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning in Healthcare
- Keywords
- electronic health records, population health research, epidemiological study design, predictive modeling, natural experiment, digital phenotyping
- MeSH terms
- Age Factors, Data Collection, Environment, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Sex Factors, Social Environment, Socioeconomic Factors, Reproducibility of Results, Epidemiologic Research Design, Health Behavior, Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures, Vital Signs, Electronic Health Records
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review