The HDPBC Trusted Analysis Environment (TAE-BC) is becoming the designated environment for research projects that require linked data. This page provides insights into the transition and what researchers need to know.
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Published on March 17, 2025
Why is BC's health sector uniting data for research?
Starting in 2026, Health Data Platform BC’s Trusted Analysis Environment (TAE-BC) will be the environment for research projects requiring linked data. This includes active, ongoing projects as well as new requests. As part of this plan:
- All active projects using BC health sector data will migrate from Population Data BC’s Secure Research Environment (SRE) to the TAE-BC
- Researchers affiliated (or collaborating on specific projects) with health authorities will establish and implement TAE-BC as the analytical environment to conduct this research, when data linkage is required
- The Ministry will work with health authorities to implement a common data access request path for researchers who are not affiliated with a health authority
Change overview
BC was an early pioneer in the linkage of administrative data, thanks to a strong and novel collaboration that began almost 30 years ago between the Ministry of Health and UBC’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research. The research environment has benefited from this partnership.
While PopData’s SRE has provided a valuable service, the health sector data environment has continued to evolve, and the sector is moving to:
- Common, transparent processes and pathways for data access across health organizations
- Common process to facilitate data linkage across organizations and data forms
- Common approaches to assemble data for analysis
- Enhance discoverability of data and data products in the sector
The Ministry of Health has responded to these challenges through the work of the Health Data Platform BC (HDPBC), Trusted Analysis Environment (TAE-BC) and Research Approval Process Project (RAPP) by:
- Implementing a streamlined approval process path, including a single application and adjudication for cross health organization data access requests
- Implementing a scalable technical infrastructure for the health sector to build resiliency to meet evolving analytic and technological needs
- Enabling coordinated participation in the broader data ecosystem to facilitate unifying other data forms such as images and genomics and other data partners across sectors and within the sector
- Implementing enabling analytic services to enhance discovery of data assets, code and methodology; to enhance reusability of code by leveraging common platforms; and to reduce data wrangling
- Adopting common standards across data stewards
The overall expectation is enhanced process transparency. The move to the Trusted Analysis Environment (TAE-BC) is one part of this effort to bring analysts from health organizations and academia to one platform so that:
- Data is made available and assembled once to support multiple needs. A single preparation of the data supports code re-use and sharing, enabling analytic efficiency and transparency
- Collaboration is enhanced across health organization analysts, clinicians and researchers by providing a single place to virtually collaborate on analytic projects
- Health sector data and analytical needs evolve sustainably to meet changing and emerging needs
Support and additional information
The Front Counters remain unchanged. The Data Access Unit at PopData will continue to be the front counter team for academic researchers requiring access to Ministry of Health held data sets. This is similarly the case for health organizations. Additionally, there is a transition support team that can be reached at hdpbctransitionsupport@popdata.bc.ca for any questions relating to this change.
For details on TAE-BC and SRE differences, visit the Academic Research Project page.