The aim of Hazelinks was to investigate the short, medium, and long-term health effects of the smoke from the coal mine fire by using routinely collected health data. There were two components of Hazelinks: identified data linkage and anonymised data extraction. Identified linkage used participant information from the Adult Survey (name, date of birth, sex etc.) to link to health datasets. Data extraction involved requesting anonymised data extracts (data that does not have names attached) for all ages, for a specific time period, for all the main exposure areas (as well as surrounding regions). Data linkage and data extraction was repeated approximately every 2-3 years for the duration of the study. All data were linked to modelled air quality data from CSIRO using geographic coordinates. The geographical coordinates used to assign air quality data for identified linkage were based on the participants' home addresses at the time the health record was created.
The following video clip is an excerpt from the 2023 Annual Community Briefing providing an update on the Hazelinks stream.
You can also view previous research updates from the Hazelinks Stream here:
2022 Hazelinks Stream - Update
2021 Hazelinks Stream - Update
The datasets used for identified linkage and data extraction were as follows:
| Datasets | Identified linkage | Data extraction |
| Ambulance Data | Yes | Yes |
| Hospital admissions & emergency presentations | Yes | Yes |
| Victorian Cancer Registry | Yes | Yes |
| National Death Data | Yes | Yes |
| Australian Cancer Database* | Yes | No |
| Medicare (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) data | No | Yes ** |
* Linkage to the Australian Cancer Database required approvals from the data custodians of each state and territory cancer registry.
** Extraction only included records in the Latrobe Valley from 1 July 2012 onwards.
The identified linkage searched for participants' personal details such as name, date of birth and sex in the relevant health databases. This meant that if participants' details matched a record in any of the searched databases (such as ambulance, hospitals, cancer and death) the record was returned to the Hazelwood Health Study. For example, if you visited a hospital, broad details such as date of hospital visit, primary diagnosis, length of stay were returned to the Hazelwood Health Study. Please note, confidential medical records, test results or conversations with doctors were not shared.
The data extraction component of the study used anonymised data only. This meant that health data provided to the study did not have participants' name attached to the record.
