Harnessing Administrative Data for Real-World Evidence in Psoriatic Disease: Opportunities, Challenges, and...

Real-world data (RWD) from administrative claims and electronic health records provide a powerful resource for understanding treatment effectiveness, long-term safety, and the natural progression of disease. The promise of these data in psoriatic disease (PsD) was a topic for discussion at the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) 2025 annual meeting. RWD enable prognostic research and support the evaluation of treatment strategies in populations typically underrepresented in randomized controlled trials. Important methodological challenges, including confounding by indication, selection bias, immortal time bias, and collider bias can compromise causal inferences from RWD. To realize the full potential of RWD, studies must prioritize careful question formulation, robust data curation, variable validation, and transparent analysis. When rigorously applied, these approaches can generate policy-relevant evidence to inform real-world care. This is particularly important in PsD, where key questions remain about treatment sequencing, comparative effectiveness, and progression from psoriasis to psoriatic arthritis.