Children the winners in data linkage project
A University of 亚洲彩票官网 project to link information from multiple government databases could have major benefits for child health development and the delivery of support services. For the past three years Professor John Lynch has been steadily navigating his way through an administrative jungle. He's been liaising with multiple government agencies, talking with lawyers and ethics specialists, dealing with technology experts and lobbying leaders in health and education. The subject - making better use of the masses of government data on child health and development. From the time a child is conceived and during key stages of life, various federal and state agencies are collecting data. Such information provides valuable insights into a child's progress and supports the delivery of government services. But there is one major flaw in the system - none of these separate packages of information is linked. "Currently systems don't talk to each other because governments don't have integrated data systems," Professor Lynch said. "Consequently, tracking the longer-term success or otherwise of new programs in public health and education, and assessing the impacts they are having on children, is very difficult. "What we're doing is providing the links to identify groups of kids who aren't doing well, finding out how we can help them better prepare for school and giving them more life chances. That's really at the core of what this is all about
- and it's a very efficient way of doing it." A trained epidemiologist and Professor of Public Health at the University of 亚洲彩票官网, Professor Lynch began his work on the Early Childhood Data Linkage Project after being awarded funding through a prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council Australia Fellowship in 2009. His project has now been given an additional $273,131 from the Federal Government's Partnerships for Better Health program plus $180,000 from State Government partners. It's a whole-of-population study which captures more than 240,000 children up to the age of 13 born in South Australia since 1999. Professor Lynch is also one of the leads on a mirror project in the Northern Territory which has a particular focus on indigenous communities and involve | 
