Data scientists and health experts are beginning to unpack the health information of Victorians to properly understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Teams including epidemiologists, researchers, clinicians and health information managers are using linked health data to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on mental health, family violence, health risks of long-COVID and elective surgery waitlists.

The research is intended to improve government decision-making and health policy.

Monash Health intensive care specialist David Ku took part in his second “data-thon” over the weekend.

“We want to look … retrospectively [at] the impact of some major policies that were made, for example, and how that impacted on a community,” Dr Ku said.

“By dissecting that population in a variety of ways, we can demonstrate which populations were most vulnerable and which populations were most affected.”

Women and children in focus

Associate Dean at La Trobe University’s rural health school Leesa Hooker said the pandemic highlighted the difference between the health response to domestic violence in rural and metropolitan areas.

“We’re looking at hospital data, which has some limitations because that’s the really pointy end of the violence spectrum, where women and children are being physically and sexually abused, needing hospital treatments.

“It only shows you one small picture of what’s actually happening.

“The beauty of this day is that there are multiple datasets that we can potentially explore later on by looking at community health data, other services’ data, child protection data, those sorts of things to tell us a bit more of the bigger picture.”

Linking research

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, and states and territories, introduced privacy principles to guide the ongoing risks related to collecting and storing health information during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Director of Research at Bendigo Health Angela Crombie, an associate professor, said the intensive research program was a rare opportunity to analyse multiple state-wide health data sets and translate them meaningfully.

“We link up disparate data sets that have never been linked before. We have huge health data, but very rarely is it actually linked,” Dr Crombie said. 

“In two days [of research sessions], you can’t conclusively say that this is definite, but it can certainly provide the evidence required to then develop a really robust program of COVID-related research in future.

“It is all about continuing the research.”

As a principal analyst with the Victorian Department of Health, Dennis Wollersheim loves data.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the way his profession dealt with data and the emphasis given to understanding what it meant for decision-making.

“Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews had to go stand up there every day, and say, ‘This is what’s happening’,” Mr Wollersheim said.

“And that had to be supported by data and so there was a lot of work to make those numbers correct and to make decisions based on science.

“It’s kind of hard work to figure out whether that John Smith is the same as that John Smith. The result of the pandemic was that we got much better at doing that linkage.

“One data set is great, two data sets is better. With three data sets you’ve got many more connections and you can answer really interesting questions.”

Lessons for the state

But data is not foolproof and its meaning is not always clear.

Dr Ku said scrutinising and “cleaning” the data would allow the state’s health professionals to take a broader look at the long-term effects of pandemics and see where authorities should focus their attention during the response.

“As intensive care clinicians, we look after the sickest patient in the hospitals and what we often see is a very short and acute journey of the patient,” he said.