Insurance Medicine All Sweden (IMAS)

About IMAS

Data in IMAS are used in studies on, for example, risk factors for sickness absence and disability pension, consequences of being on sick leave or receiving disability pension, what factors prevents or promotes return to work and sick leave practices.

These questions can be studied in general, but also for different diagnoses, in different occupational groups and for people in different life situations. Various methodical studies are also carried out within the project.

Nationwide data

IMAS includes linked microdata from several nationwide and regional registers administered by

• Statistic Sweden, e.g. LISA and ULF
• The National Board of Health and Welfare, e.g. the Patient Register, the Prescribed Drug Register, the Cause of Death Register
• The Social Insurance Agency, e.g. MiDAS
• Region Stockholm, e.g. VAL.
  

In total, pseudonymised data for eight population-based cohorts is included, corresponding to just over 14 million individuals who are followed both retrospectively and prospectively.

IMAS is regularly renewed with new orders and data deliveries from authorities. Extensive work is carried out at with quality checks and data curation, which makes it easier for researchers who want to work with register data.

Access to data

Researchers and doctoral students are welcome to apply for IMAS data for studies on sickness absence and disability pension. It is possible to work with the data on site at Karolinska Institutet, or get assistance with specific analyses performed by IMAS staff and obtain results at group level. It is also possible to write a thesis based on IMAS data.

Information about access to IMAS data is available on the Karolinska Institutet website

IMAS also offers advice and support on ordering and managing administrative register data for research purposes.

Advice on ordering and handling data