Generic health relevance

Main inclusion criteria

• Research applicable to all diseases and conditions or to general health and well-being of individuals.
• Public health research, epidemiology and health services research that is not focused on specific conditions.
• Underpinning biological, psychosocial, economic or methodological studies that are not specific to individual diseases or conditions.

 

Advice on health categories

There are four main circumstances where the Generic Health Relevance category is most applicable:

1. Research that is relevant to all diseases and conditions or to general health and well-being.
   • For example, many studies with research activity coded as 1 Underpinning involves study of normal processes that may be relevant to all diseases and conditions e.g. cell cycle or DNA repair, developmental biology.
2. Any research that cannot be attributed to a particular disease or condition or to normal function of a specific type of cell or system, defined by the top 19 health categories.
   • e.g. Studies of wounds and healing without a specified tissue type or specifically caused by Accident or Injuries.
3. If research is judged relevant to more than five Health Categories then these should be substituted for 100% Generic Health Relevance.
4. As an additional code for studies with a disease(s)/condition(s) of focus which also has relevance to many other diseases/conditions.
   • This final circumstance has considerable scope, so additional guidance is given below.

 

Generic Health Relevance as an additional code

If the main focus of the research is directed at several specified diseases and also has implications for many other conditions, the appropriate specific Health Categories should be used as well as applying the Generic category. (Note that this does not apply to diseases that may be listed within the background information or are noted as ‘being relevant’ to the study under investigation; many awards will reference multiple conditions to provide a context for the research, but always apply coding based on the lifetime of the award – (see the coding guidance on assigning health categories.)

Examples of this use of Generic Health Relevance coding appears across the HRCS guidance, including:

• Cancer studies – Studies of the normal role of oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes in a non-diseased cell may be coded as 50% Cancer and neoplasms and 50% Generic.
• Pollution – If there is no other indication of the health effects of air pollution, code 50% Respiratory for the direct effects on the lungs and 50% Generic for other effects.
• Environmental radiation – Studies of the effects of environmental radiation exposure should be coded 33.33% Cancer, 33.33% Congenital Disorders and 33.33% Generic.
• Studies where a particular condition is used as an exemplar or case study to evaluate models, services and systems may also be coded as Generic – see Case studies, exemplars and tracer conditions guidance for more details.

 

Official terminology

Full name of category	Short name	Unique ID
Generic health relevance	Generic	HRCS_HC_20GEN

 

Related external links

None.