National youth justice health
data linkage project
National youth justice health data linkage project
Young people exposed to the youth justice system in Australia shoulder a disproportionate burden of adolescent morbidity and mortality. Despite their extreme vulnerability, remarkably little is known about patterns of healthcare use in young people after release from detention or other forms of youth justice supervision. In partnership with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), we have linked de-identified, national youth justice records 2000-2019 (N=88,110) with national emergency department, hospital, Medicare, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), and National Death Index data. This is a quantum leap in terms of providing a platform for understanding health outcomes for justice-involved young people. We will, for the first time globally, document patterns and predictors of health service utilisation, health outcomes and death in young people exposed to the youth justice system, at the national level, over 20 years. Specifically, we will:
Compare rates of primary and secondary healthcare utilisation, and medication use, in justice-involved young people, with that of their age- and sex-matched community peers;
Estimate all-cause and cause-specific crude mortality rates (CMRs) and standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) in the cohort and in subgroups defined by sex and Indigenous status;
Identify static and time-varying risk and protective factors associated with mortality in this population.
Funding: National Health and Medical Research Council
Project team: Prof Stuart Kinner, Dr Rohan Borschmann, Prof Susan Sawyer, Prof Seena Fazel; Dr Matt Legge, Ms Lindsay Pearce