The following FAQs provide more information about the Adult Survey.
Who was invited to participate in the Adult Survey?
- Adults who were registered on the Victorian Electoral Roll as living within the town boundary of Morwell, or selected regions of Sale, at the time of the Hazelwood Mine Fire, were invited to participate in the Adult Survey. We did not have access to contact details for other adults who lived in Morwell or the selected regions of Sale, but who were not on the Victorian Electoral Roll.
Why did the Adult Survey focus on Morwell and Sale?
- Morwell and Sale were the towns included in the questionnaire and identified health record linkage parts of the Adult Survey. For the Adult Survey and the associated health assessments it was important that we focused on Morwell as the town which received the highest exposure level as this maximised our chance of identifying significant health outcomes. Air pollution exposure modelling was used to identify Sale as a suitable comparison community with less exposure to the Hazelwood mine fire smoke. Comparisons between the health of Morwell and Sale residents allowed us to identify any differences in health outcomes that may be attributed to the smoke exposure. Detailed exposure modelling for the Latrobe Valley and beyond enabled us to estimate the health outcomes for other areas.
- It was not possible, nor necessary, for the Hazelwood Health Study Adult Survey to interview every person who was in the Latrobe Valley during the mine fire. If as many invited people as possible participated in Morwell and Sale, then that would provide sufficient information about the pattern of health in highly exposed versus less exposed people. The findings could then be generalised to people who worked in Morwell during the fire, but did not live there, and to other communities in the Latrobe Valley. The inclusion of additional people in the Adult Survey would have made the study larger, longer, more complex, and more expensive, but would have added little value to the findings.
Why was Sale selected as the comparison community?
- Sale was selected as the comparison community because:
- It had less exposure to the Hazelwood mine fire smoke but is comparable to Morwell in size, rural location, age of residents etc
- We were keen to select another Gippsland town to understand the impacts of the Hazelwood mine fire across the broader Gippsland region
- Collecting information from two Gippsland sites also gave us a much greater understanding of the health and health services use of the region. This will inform health service planning for Gippsland and for regional Australia more generally
- It was our hope that the Sale community would be more willing to participate in the study, compared with another community further away in Victoria or even interstate, because Sale residents were aware of the mine fire event and interested in the outcomes.
Why were only some areas of Sale targeted?
- It was not necessary for us to speak with every Sale resident to get an understanding of the impacts of the smoke event.
- We selected the areas in Sale based on a number of factors including having a comparable age profile to Morwell.
- By limiting the study to particular areas in Sale, we could focus recruitment efforts on those areas instead of trying to engage the entire town.
- The inclusion of additional Sale residents in the Adult Survey made the study larger, longer, more complex, and more expensive, but would have added little value to the findings.
- To see the areas of Sale being targeted click here.
How did the study get my name and address details?
- In accordance with section 34 of the Electoral Act 2002, the Victorian Electoral Commission agreed to provide Monash University with an extract from the 2014 Victorian Election electoral roll including the names and addresses of people aged 18 years and over who resided in Morwell and Sale. An extract of the current Register of Electors was also provided for the same electors including current address, whether the elector was still active on the roll and whether the elector was deceased. This information was provided for the purpose of recruiting participants for the Adult Survey Stream of the Hazelwood Health Study which investigated the health effects of the Hazelwood Mine Fire.
How was the privacy of Adult Survey participants protected?
- The Hazelwood Health Study protected the privacy of participants in the Adult Survey in a number of ways:
- All participants were allocated an ID number in place of personal information such as name and address.
- Information collected was entered into a de-identified database via the secure Hazelwood Health Study Adult Survey remote desktop.
- Access to this remote desktop portal is only made available to authorised Study staff via a password-protected and secure login.
- Data collected from participants is locked within a secure environment both physically (paper files) and electronically.
- All staff who were involved in conducting the Hazelwood Health Study Adult Survey were trained and understood the importance of confidentiality and privacy.
- In addition, all Hazelwood Health Study staff signed confidentiality agreements as part of their employment.
- Staff and contracted service providers who have been authorised to access data provided by the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) signed a VEC confidentiality agreement and would face severe penalties if they disclosed VEC data.
- More information on how we ensured the privacy of participants is available here.
I have current concerns about my health - what do I do?
- The study was not about providing medical assistance. Residents with current concerns about their health are encouraged to seek assistance from their local general practitioner.
What is health record linkage and what sort of data was collected?
- Health record linkage is a process to bring together recorded health information that relates to the same person. Records are routinely collected every time we make use of a health service such as an ambulance, hospital stay or visit to the emergency department.
- By bringing all this information together we were able to build up a picture of a person’s health status and follow changes over time, without having to contact the person for repeated interviews. This was important for the Adult Survey which was interested in long term outcomes.
- For some linkages we needed your Medicare number to ensure that we accurately linked to the correct records. However, Adult Survey participants who consented to health record linkage were under no obligation to provide their Medicare number.
- Your personal details such as name, date of birth and sex were searched in health databases. This means that if your details matched a record in any of the searched databases (such as ambulance, hospitals, cancer and death) the record was returned to Monash University. For example if you visited a hospital, details such as date of hospital visit, primary diagnosis, and length of stay was returned to us. Please note that confidential client notes on conversations with doctors was not provided to us.
- All information collected is treated with absolute confidentiality and used for health research only. All identified data is held securely to ensure total security, confidentiality and anonymity. Nothing that would identify individual participants will be released publicly.
How were people notified about research outcomes?
- A core aspect of community engagement was our commitment to providing regular updates to the community as the study progressed. We spoke regularly with community groups and at other community events. We provided regular updates through the local media (newspaper, TV and radio), held community briefings, as well as kept people updated through our website and social media. The findings released can be found on the Study findings page.
What else was done in the broader Hazelwood Health Study?
- The Adult Survey was one of several research areas undertaken, with other studies targeting the impacts on infants, school children, older people and the broader community. In addition, de-identified health record linkage collected information about health service use across the entire Latrobe Valley and beyond, allowing us to see if service use changed as a result of the smoke event. For more information about these activities see Research Areas or our main Frequently Asked Questions section.
