Data Integration Case Studies

The Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP) has linked existing Medicare, government payments, personal income tax, and 2011 Census data. Participating agencies include the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Education and Training, the Department of Health, and the Department of Social Services.

Projects undertaken in MADIP include work identifying that lower income households typically make greater use of health services associated with some chronic medical conditions and have poorer health outcomes than those living in higher socioeconomic areas. This analysis has highlighted possibilities for improving Australian’s access to the health care system.

For more information, visit the Australian Bureau of Statistics website.

The Data Linkage System at the WA Dept. of Health was established in 1995 to undertake systematic integration of health and administrative data for research and statistics – the first of its kind in Australia. Over 800 projects from academia, government, and hospitals have used WA’s linked data.

Data linkage has been used to evaluate doctors and hospitals and to study the patterns, causes and effects of heart disease and cancer. Data linkage has also been used to improve planning for the flu-season and other busy times.

For more information, visit the Data Linkage website.

New Zealand has been linking government data for over ten years, and has created the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). The IDI is a large research database about people and households and is used to answer complex questions to improve outcomes for individuals.

For example, the IDI’s data to explore people’s life paths, including helping identify characteristics of children who may have poor health, low income or go to jail as adults. This analysis has been used to help children and teenagers as they grow up.

For more information, visit Integrated Data Infrastructure webpage.

The Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE) is an analytical tool that helps researchers analyse business performance, dynamics, demography and characteristics. It consists of linked datasets.

Data from BLADE has been used to show that Australian businesses demonstrate superior growth while they are preparing to become exporters. But, BLADE has also been used to show that this growth falls back once they start exporting. This finding has focused the attention of researchers on a number of important policy questions to better support Australian exporters and non-exporters.

For more information, visit the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment webpage.