Retired Astronauts Medical Data Repository (RADAR): a Feasibility Project Grant uri icon

abstract

  • Focused Investigation Project Understanding long-term impacts of space exploration on human health requires tracking crewmember medical status well after retirement. Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health (LSAH) collects data on United States and Canadian crewmembers, but does not collect data on other international crewmembers. To reduce risk, the sample size must be enlarged. Retired Astronauts Medical Data Repository (RADAR) will investigate the feasibility for developing an international retired astronaut data base. The long-term goal of this work is to create a retired astronaut medical data repository housed at Texas A&M University-College Station to capture data that will otherwise be lost and to greatly increase the “n” for future research. Ultimately, data for all retired crew in this repository would be made available for use by qualified investigators to study the long-term health impact of exposure to the space environment in order to mitigate health risks for future crew. All data from US and Canadian retirees would be made available to NASA’s LSAH. For this one-year feasibility project, we propose to undertake critical activities required to assure the eventual success of such a data repository. Hence, our short-term goals include (1) Project Definition: conducting thorough collection of stakeholder input on issues related to collecting medical data; (2) Minimal Viable Prototype (MVP): adapting an existing software platform to make medical data collection user-friendly and easy; creating a minimally viable prototype for data collection and repository in which to bank those data; (3) Consenting Issue Resolution: developing a “willing cohort” of retired crew members by obtaining prospective consent to said data collection; (4) Pilot Data Collection: running a pilot data collection trial; and (5) Strategic Plan: generating a strategic plan complete with a realistic supporting budget for the full development of a retired astronaut medical data repository. 1. A “willing” cohort of retired astronauts (both domestic and international) that has been socialized to sharing of medical data, “real-world” data from wearable technologies/ genomics services, and end-of-life reports. 2. A well-defined prospective consenting procedure that will be useful for retired crew across multiple countries. 3. A comprehensive strategic plan for moving to full implementation with this Retired Astronaut Medical Data Repository, including: a. Roadmap for entire project ; b. Evaluation of lessons learned from feasibility project, including pilot testing of “best fit” platform that is HIPAA-compliant, with defined interoperability requirements ; c. High level cost analysis with technology/personnel requirements. New project for FY2019.

date/time interval

  • 2019 - 2020