EXTERNALLY FUNDED RESEARCH PROJECTS
The family domestic and sexual violence integrated data system – v1.0 proof of concept
Background
The Women’s Safety Budget 2021-22 included resourcing over four financial years (2021-22 to 2024-25) to help build on the existing the family, domestic and sexual violence (FDSV) evidence base. Specifically, the Department of Social Services (DSS) funded the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) to develop an integrated data system to enhance reporting on FDSV.
This project is as an activity under Action 2 of the First Action Plan 2023–2027 of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.
Aim
This project improves the national evidence base for people experiencing and using family, domestic and sexual violence by connecting information from a range of relevant data sources. This connection of data will be used to create a set of FDSV cohorts for use in analyses in the national linkage systems.
The project will be achieved in two stages:
1. Development and testing of a first version of a cohort-specific linkage spine that will be known as the Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Integrated Data System (FDSV IDS).
2. Analysis of the health service use of people who have experienced or used FDSV, using those captured within the new FDSV IDS as the analysis cohort.
Methods
This project uses five data sources to identify people who have experienced or used FDSV. The temporal coverage of each data source differs, however the main coverage of the five data sources combined is 2010 to 2024.
The data sources are:
1. Data Exchange (DEX), which includes data relating to attendances at a range of Government funded FDV services.
2. Data Over Multiple Individual Occurrences (DOMINO), which includes data on the receipt of FDV -related crisis payments.
3. Specialist Homelessness Services collection (SHSC), which includes data where a FDSV was the reason for seeking assistance, or the client needed, was provided with, or referred to a service specific to FDSV.
4. Admitted Patient Care (APC), which includes information on cases admitted to hospital with an injury or other condition, in which an assault related to FDV or a sexual assault (regardless of perpetrator) is documented.
5. National Death Index (NDI), which contains information on deaths that have an underlying cause coded as an assault, sexual assault, neglect or abandonment or other maltreatment by a partner or family member.
The FDSV IDS is being delivered via the AIHWs National Health Data Hub (NHDH) which enables the exploration of health service use among the cohort.
As at 2025, access to the data is limited to AIHW analysts. However, work is currently underway to explore opportunities for future access by other approved researchers.