Preventable Deaths Database and Tracker

This repository contains the code and data for running the Preventable Deaths Tracker.

Data

The data is collected from the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website. To capture the data, we run a web scraper which is available in the data folder. We have processed the names of the deceased due to the sensitive nature of the data.

Research and dissemination

We wrote about the data collection method, web scraping, in Nature available here: "How we learnt to stop worrying and love web scraping" and we have published several reports and studies in academic journals using this data, including:

1. case series of deaths involving anticoagulants and cardiovascular disease
2. case series of deaths during the covid-19 pandemic
3. case series of deaths from purchasing medications online
4. case report of two deaths from ingesting alcohol-based hand sanisiter
5. case report of two deaths from repeated prescriptions of tramadol
6. case report of undiagnosed and untreated adverse drug reactions from diclofenac in adolescents
7. case report of an accidental death from emollient products in the presence of naked flames
8. report on deaths involving cyclists
9. reports on preventable deaths in cities, including Cambridge and Oxford
10. An editorial to highlight the importance of PFDs and launch the Coroners' Concerns to Prevent Harms series

We have a number of ongoing studies, including:

• A case series of preventable suicides
• A case series of deaths involving opioids
• A case series of preventable deaths involving medicines and misused drugs

How to cite us?

We encourage others to reuse our code and data! If using, please cite both our publication and the repositry using the below. You can also read and reference our research publications above.

1. DeVito NJ, Richards GC, Inglesby P. How we learnt to stop worrying and love web scraping. Nature. 2020;85(7826):621-622. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02558-0
2. Richards, GC. DeVito, NJ. Preventable Deaths Database and Tracker: georgiarichards/georgiarichards.github.io. Github. 2021: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5675866

The DOI for this page is:

Contributors

• Dr Georgia Richards
• Nick DeVito
• Joshua Loo
• Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine: Prof Carl Heneghan & Dr Jeffrey Aronson
• Prof Robin Ferner
• Dr Anthony Cox

Funders

• NIHR SPCR Engagement & Dissemination Grant and SeedCorn funding to develop the website

Contact us

If you're interested in our research or have any questions get in touch [email protected]