Covid-19 will be the initial focus of this work stream, with an early focus on the Pandemic | Administrative Data Research (PAND|AR) project. PAND|AR will focus on the five harms approach, looking closely at both the direct and indirect harms arising from Covid-19 pandemic on individuals, services and inequalities at a population-scale, and pandemic recovery. We will study harms arising from infections, such as hospitalisations, reinfection rates and other adverse outcomes following an infection from Covid-19. Associated inequalities arising from the Covid-19 pandemic will be evaluated, including access to services or delays and any associated risks, along with the indirect harm of pressures on the health and social care system. We will look at harms arising from population-level health protection measures such as educational harm, psychological harm and isolation from shielding and other measures.

We will look at the economic harms, such as unemployment and reduced business income arising from Covid-19 directly and population control measures, like lockdowns. We will look at the harms arising from the way Covid-19 has exacerbated existing or introduced new inequalities in our society, such as geographic and spatial inequalities, intersectional disadvantage, education inequalities exacerbated by Covid-19 and economic vulnerability. We will evaluate potential interventions and national approaches to recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, including the vaccination programme, associated uptake, safety, waning and adverse events that may arise from vaccination, and any potential inequalities in access to vaccinations that should receive more targeted interventions. Potential benefits arising from these interventions will be considered too.

We plan to develop a series of research ready data assets (RRDAs) and reproducible research pipelines that will serve, longer-term, to monitor, evaluate and research the impacts of other major societal challenges that arise across the generations.