A bold vision to integrate social science datasets with health-related data is taking shape in an Australian-first collaboration
The National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA), a partnership between Monash University and Peninsula Health, is delighted to partner in the recently-launched Social Science Research Infrastructure Network (SSRIN), being led by the Institute for Social Science Research at The University of Queensland with co-investment from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC).
Other partners include the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian National University, The Centre for Child Health Research at the University of Western Australia, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Life Course Centre).
The Australian ARDC, through its Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (HASS) and Indigenous Research Data Commons, is co-investing $4.43 million in the initiative, alongside co-investment from the partners bringing the total investment to $8.86 million.
About the initiative
The initiative builds on the directions outlined in the recently released Decadal Plan for Social Science Research Infrastructure 2024-33 from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, which outlines a vision for enhancing Australia’s social science research capabilities over the next decade.
As the Academy’s project lead Dr Isabel Ceron explains, the plan has been developed at the right time to take advantage of an enormous step change in the amount of social data that’s becoming available to researchers.
‘In a similar way large telescopes inaugurated a new era of discovery for astrophysics and space science, in the same way that peeking into our genes forever changed the way we understood life and its determinants, we are now starting to see masses of social, human data, pouring in from all corners of society.’1
Why does this connection matter – and what can we gain by linking health and social data?
Leveraging our leading-edge NCHA Healthy Ageing Data platform, this new initiative is designed to improve research infrastructure for social sciences in Australia creating a common resource for both social sciences and health researchers, generating better access to key data infrastructure, and improving collaboration opportunities between researchers and various sectors with wide-ranging benefits.
- Comprehensive insights: The integration allows researchers to gain ‘whole-of-life’ insights into various population groups, examining interactions between health, socioeconomic factors, and outcomes
- Social determinants of health: Researchers can better understand the impact of social and environmental factors on health outcomes by combining health data with information on education, income, employment, and demographics
- Improved population representation: Cross-sectoral data linkage can enhance the representation of socially excluded populations in research, monitoring, and quality improvement initiatives
How the NCHA Healthy Ageing Data Platform team will be leading the way in this collaboration
Prof Nadine Andrew will lead two streams of work in which the NCHA’s Data Platform team will work with social scientists to:
- Assess the added value of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data to social science research, and the feasibility of linking the NCHA Data Platform data with a range of social science data sets. This will involve reviewing existing data sources for suitability and scoping data custodial agreements and a sustainability model for maintaining datasets.
- Scope the feasibility of enhancing geographical coverage of the NCHA electronic health record data model, including undertaking replication studies in other parts of Australia. This will involve identifying potential partners, establishing unified design and core data, and producing a common data governance model to facilitate data sharing and linkage.
A/Prof Richard Beare will lead a stream in which the NCHA data platform team will develop methods for incorporating items from text data that reflect social and economic vulnerability into routinely-collected datasets. They will also develop and test prototype tools, which will build on existing software, including open source language models. These prototypes will be tested within the NCHA Data Platform as a proof of concept.
Also contributing from NCHA are Prof Velandai Srikanth and Dr Taya Collyer as Expert Advisors and Dr Alison Carver as Project Manager for NCHA-related work.
Keen to learn more?
Contact Dr Alison Carver: alison.carver@monash.edu