How is your privacy protected?
The AIHW manages this data with respect for its sensitivity, and with privacy and confidentiality assured through legislation, accountability practices and procedures. The AIHW also manages relationships with data custodians to ensure accountability and appropriate use of the relevant data collections.
The AIHW protects the privacy of an individual through a process of de-identification. This involves removing identifying information (for example, a person’s name, address or Medicare number) so that researchers are unable to tell who the information belongs to.
Researchers are only allowed to publish data that has been approved by the data custodian and checked that there is no way a person can be identified.
This project has ethical approval from:
- the AIHW Ethics Committee (EO2021-2-1232)
- the NSW Population and Health Services Research Ethics Committee- as part of the National Mutual Acceptance Scheme (2021_ETH00412) and
- the Northern Territory Department of Health and the Menzies School of Health Research (2021-4106).
The AIHW uses the Five Safes Framework to reinforce management of the privacy and confidentiality of data. Five Safes is an approach to assessing and managing risks associated with data sharing and release. Under the framework, the risk of re-identification is minimised, particularly as data are supplied to researchers in secure access environments where outputs are checked by the AIHW.

How can the data be accessed?
All users who want to access the de-identified research data will be required to submit to AIHW a project proposal including a data analysis plan and a signed Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 s29 Undertaking of Confidentiality form. This form protects the privacy of individuals by making it a criminal offence to disclose information about the participants of a study, punishable by fines and/or imprisonment. Data will not be provided to, accessed, or used by another, unauthorised party. Access is strictly controlled within a secure remote access environment, with no access allowed to other project workspaces.
Due to the detailed and sensitive nature of the data, access will only be provided via secure research environments where AIHW can apply appropriate vetting and management processes in line with AIHW’s Five Safes Framework.
In this first stage of the project, only government researchers or those funded by government will be eligible to apply for access. All other researchers will have access to the data in future stages of the project once all relevant ethics and data custodian approvals for access and use arrangements have been obtained and a suitable secure environment is available.
Using the data for research
Researchers who wish to use the data will need to ensure their research question/s falls under the approved uses. Examples of approved broad areas of research are described in Table 1.
Researchers will also need to complete a project proposal form, which will be reviewed by the AIHW custodian and approved by the relevant data custodians.
For more information, contact [email protected].
Table 1: Approved research themes and potential analysis questions
Research theme |
Potential analysis |
Epidemiological and statistical research |
- Estimates of COVID-19 incidence and prevalence
- Burden of disease analysis
- Cause and timing of death after a COVID-19 diagnosis
- Associations between comorbidities, vaccination and risk factors for people who have died from COVID-19
- Estimates of COVID-19 severity
- Estimates of re-infection with COVID-19
- Impact of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments
|
Service use and medication dispensing and patient journeys |
- Patterns of health and aged care service use and expenditure before and after COVID-19 diagnosis
- Patterns of medication dispensing before and after COVID-19 diagnosis
- Impact of COVID-19 on long-term service needs
|
Identifying groups or cohorts of interest |
- Impact and extent of infection in key settings of interest, for example in the health and aged care settings
- People with chronic conditions and whether COVID-19 diagnosis is associated with changes in chronic condition outcomes, treatment and management
- Health and service use outcomes for particular patient cohorts such as those with long COVID, older Australians, those with comorbidities or who speak a language other than English as their main language at home, those who have received a COVID-19 vaccine
|
Monitoring, evaluation and data quality improvement |
- Monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs designed to reduce the transmission of COVID-19
- Monitoring and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccination and treatments (such as antivirals)
- Verification of information from the NNDSS
|
Frequently asked questions