I am a statistician. I rely on data for my career. Luckily data is everywhere, so I’m often spoilt for choice.
There are strong research, social and ethical arguments for data sharing. that is why research funding bodies, the ARDC, learned societies, institutions and journals are increasingly calling for the sharing of data. This is not without its practical and ethical challenges. But with a little preparation, they are not insurmountable. This item suggests that Australian health researchers are not consistently sharing their data. We all need to lift our game here. We have included links to a trove of related items.
Ad nauseum examples
Many other researchers have spoken about the difficulties of accessing health data for research in Australia. For example papers see here, here and here (there are many more).
In the last few months I’ve had two projects from colleagues be denied access to promised health data, one on smoking and one on gestational diabetes.
National preference
In my opinion, Australia will always be a conservative country when it comes to sharing health data for research.
