Publishing WA health system data

Draft Outputs Review

To submit a draft output for review, please complete the Draft Output Review Checklist (Word Doc, 285 KB) and email it with the draft output to ISPD Client Services.

All outputs resulting from the analysis of linked data must be submitted to ISPD Client Services for review. This includes all outputs regardless of format, for example conference abstracts, posters, presentations, manuscripts and student theses. Please allow 2 weeks (10 business days) for this review, or possibly longer if the output is very long (e.g. a student thesis).

The review focuses on whether the output complies with the aims that have been approved by the WA Health Central Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), the impact on privacy and risk of reidentification of the data (including checking the suppression of low cell counts), terminology and descriptions about the data collections and linkage methods underpinning the method and results of the output, and appropriate acknowledgements of data collections and the Department of Health.

To learn more about the importance of output reviews, please refer to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2023 published by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Publication

No information is to be released in publications that can directly or indirectly identify individuals. In studies with small groups, be careful about identifying people through description details (e.g. cause of death) in the text. The same applies to tables, graphs and maps.

Cell suppression for small cell counts is generally applied to all project outputs, unless you wish to seek specific approval from the ethics committee to publish such information.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledging Data Linkage Services, the WA Department of Health and other data collections in publications is a requirement for secondary use of data or information under section 3.1.50 of the NHMRC's Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and part of the undertakings signed to by Principal Investigators.

The acknowledgement will vary according to the individual project, but here are some examples:

Acknowledgement 1: 

Standard project

The authors wish to thank the staff at Data Linkage Services, the WA Department of Health, and [insert names of Data Collections involved].

Acknowledgement 2: 

More complex project

The authors wish to thank the Linkage, Data Outputs and Client Services teams at Data Linkage Services Western Australia, in particular [insert names of staff who provided extra help], as well as [insert names of Data Collections/Custodians involved].

Acknowledgement 3: 

Required where Cause of Death Unit Record File (COD URF) data has been used for analysis

The authors wish to thank the Australian Co-ordinating Registry, the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages, the Coroners, the National Coronial Information System and the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety for enabling COD URF data to be used for this publication.

Acknowledgement 4: 

National study using data collections from multiple states

The authors wish to thank the staff of the data linkage units of the State and Territory health departments (WA, Victoria, SA-NT, NSW, QLD) for the linkage of the data. Further, we thank the data custodians for the provision of the following data:

  • Inpatient hospital data (5 States and Territories)
  • Emergency Department data (5 States and Territories)

COD URF: Australian Co-ordinating Registry, the State Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages, the Coroners, the National Coronial Information System and the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety.

Data availability statements
The following wording can be used for data availability statements in publications:

“The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to the terms of the ethics approval granted by the WA Health Central Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and data disclosure policies of the data providers. The datasets may be available from the corresponding author upon request and subject to approval from the HREC and relevant custodians.”

Last reviewed: 10-11-2025