Charlson & Elixhauser Comorbidity Scores Dataset

Charlson & Elixhauser Comorbidity Scores Dataset#

Last modified: 27 Oct 2025

UK LLC worked with researchers to derive comorbidity scores for a number of LPS using the NHS England HES Admitted Patient Care dataset.

1. Summary#

The Charlson & Elixhauser dataset (UKLLC_rtn_comorbidity_scores_mar19feb20_v0001_20230420) contains comorbidity measures derived from the NHS England Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) Admitted Patient Care (APC) dataset for the period 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2020. Participants from the following LPS are included in the dataset: ALSPAC, BCS70, BIB, ELSA, EPICN, EXCEED, FENLAND, GLAD, MCS, NCDS58, NEXTSTEP, NIHRBIO_COPING, NSHD46, TWINSUK and UKHLS. The comorbidity indices included are Charlson and Elixhauser scores, each in multiple variants based on published weighting schemes. These measures are widely used in health services research for risk adjustment, mortality prediction and burden of disease studies. All scores were calculated using the comorbidity R package. Higher scores indicate greater comorbidity burden; unweighted scores simply count the number of comorbidity categories present; and weighted scores apply coefficients to comorbidities to reflect their relative impact on mortality or other outcomes, as estimated in the cited publications.

Dataset Descriptor	Dataset-specific Information
Name of Dataset in TRE	UKLLC_rtn_comorbidity_scores_mar19feb20
Citation (APA)	UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration. (2023). UK LLC Managed: Charlson & Elixhauser Comorbidity Scores Dataset. UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC). https://doi.org/10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00438-01
Download Citation	Citeproc JSON BibTeX RIS
Series	UK LLC Managed
Owner	UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration
Temporal Coverage	03/2019 - 02/2020
Keywords	comorbidity charlson elixhauser health NHS
Participant Count	31820
Number of variables	8
Number of observations	31820
Specific Restrictions to Data Use	None
Build a Data Request	https://explore.ukllc.ac.uk/

2. Variables#

Variable name	Description	Weighting scheme / Source
`unw_cci`	Number of Charlson comorbidity categories present for each patient, without weighting.	Unweighted count
`char_cci`	Charlson score calculated using the original weights proposed by Charlson et al. (1987)	Charlson et al. 1987
`quan_cci`	Charlson score calculated using the revised weights proposed by Quan et al. (2011)	Quan et al. 2011
`unw_eci`	Number of Elixhauser comorbidity categories present for each patient, without weighting	Unweighted count
`vw_eci`	Elixhauser score calculated using the weights proposed by van Walraven et al. (2009)	van Walraven et al. 2009
`swiss_eci`	Elixhauser score calculated using the Swiss hospital weights proposed by Sharma et al. (2021)	Sharma et al. 2021

3. Version History#

Version	1
Version Date	20 Apr 2023
Number of Variables	8
Number of Observations	31820
DOI	10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00438-01
Change Log	10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00438-01/activities

4. Useful Syntax#

Below we will include syntax that may be helpful to other researchers in the UK LLC TRE. For longer scripts, we will include a snippet of the code plus a link to Git where you can find the full scripts.