Born in Bradford Data Dictionary

How to

Structure of the data dictionary

The BiB data dictionary is divided into Containers of Projects. Each Container (e.g. BiB, BiBplus etc) occupies a slot in the side menu that can be opened up to reveal its Projects.

The Projects can be opened up to reveal their contents. For the core cohort Containers, these consist of sets of Tables containing Variables. When you request data from these Projects, we need to know which Variables you require. Further details on how to format your request are given below.

Data from other types of Container, such as genomics and health records Containers, may need to be requested in other ways. If you navigate to the Container page you will find specific instructions on how to request data from that Container.

Core Cohort Containers

This section applies to the BiB, BiBplus and CrossCohort Containers.

When you request data from a core cohort Container, such as BiB or BiBplus, you will need to send us a list of the Variables you need, along with the Tables and Projects they sit in.

You should provide the list of Variables in the following format:

`<project_name>.<table_name>.<variable_name>`

This is called the fully qualified Variable name.

The <project_name>.<table_name> part can be found at the top of each Table page and is called the Table ID. Take the Table ID and append to it the name of each Variable you wish to request, separated with a dot, as above.

Alternatively, if you click the csv link at the top of the Table page you can download a csv file containing the metadata for the whole Table. You can open this in most spreadsheet and statistical packages. The fully qualified Variable name that you need to send to us is in the full_name column.

If you want to select many Variables from a very large number of tables, you may find it easier to download the data dictionary for the entire Container. These can be found in csv and Excel format on each Container page.