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Use of data linkage to improve communicable disease surveillance and control in Australia: Existing practices, barriers and enablers

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posted on 2023-05-20, 03:39 authored by Rowe, SL, Nicola StephensNicola Stephens, Cowie, BC, Nolan, T, Leder, K, Cheng, AC

Objectives: To review the use of data linkage by Australian state and territory communicable disease control units, and to identify barriers to and enablers of data linkage to inform communicable disease surveillance and control activities.

Methods: Semi-structured telephone interviews were carried out with one key informant from communicable disease control units in all eight Australian states and territories between October 2017 and January 2018.

Results: Key informants from all Australian states and territories participated in the interview. A variety of existing practices were identified, with few jurisdictions making systematic use of available data linkage infrastructure. Key barriers identified from the review included: a lack of perceived need; system factors; and resources. Existing regulatory tools enable data linkage to enhance communicable disease surveillance and control.

Conclusions: We identified considerable variation in the use of data linkage to inform communicable disease surveillance and control activities between jurisdictions. We suggest that routinely collected, disparate data are systematically integrated into existing surveillance and response policy cycle to improve communicable disease prevention and control efforts.

Implications for public health: Existing gaps in communicable disease surveillance data may affect prevention and control efforts. Data linkage is recognised as a valuable method to close surveillance gaps and should be used to enhance the value of publicly held health data.

History

Publication title

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health

Volume

43

Pagination

33-40

ISSN

1753-6405

Department/School

Tasmanian School of Medicine

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia

Place of publication

Australia

Rights statement

Copyright 2018 State Government of Victoria, Department of Health & Human Sciences. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Disease distribution and transmission (incl. surveillance and response)

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