Lead partner
The University of Melbourne
MACH PARTNERS
Melbourne Health; Northern Health; Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
This is a collaboration that partners Indigenous health researchers and clinicians with data scientists, biostatisticians and health economists. We will link clinical data collected by Australian general practices, hospitals, and government agencies to determine how variation in CV risk, clinical events and treatment influences Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes. We will answer several important questions including:
- What factors place Indigenous Australians at increased risk of CV disease?
- Are existing risk assessment scores accurate and, if not, can we create a new score that more accurately predicts CV risk among Indigenous Australians?
- How does current implementation of evidence-based CV care differ for Indigenous vs non-Indigenous Australians?
- Does evidence-based CV care improve health outcomes among Indigenous Australians and, if so, by what magnitude?
- How can administrative health services data be used to advance Victorian Aboriginal nation building efforts?
The findings of this research will be shared with stakeholders including peak Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander health organizations, primary health care organizations and health agencies at the state and federal level. Working with these stakeholders the research team will devise strategies for improving implementation of evidence-based-care for Indigenous Australians with a focus on short- to medium-term improvements in CV care.
Expansion activities include introducing new sites to capture additional Aboriginal communities to increase diversity and generalisability of the study results; and increasing dissemination of the results across a larger number of Aboriginal health and research organisations through community engagement.
This project is supported by the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) as part of the Rapid Applied Research Translation program.
This research will reveal how CV disease is currently treated in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander communities. Demonstrating improvements following implementation of evidence-based CV care will have high translational impact and is an important step toward a national Indigenous CV implementation science initiative with potential for scalability and direct community benefit.
PROJECT BENEFITS
- Demonstrated that cardiovascular risk score guidelines do not accurately assess the risk of our Indigenous population which could lead to innovative risk assessment approaches that are more applicable to First Nations populations of Australia
- Algorithms used in Identification of our Indigenous population in the hospital system is not as robust and our analysis has led to recommendations of an alternate algorithm used in other states health services for more accurate retrospective identification of Indigenous patients in our health data
IMPACTS
- Innovative risk assessment approaches that are more applicable to First Nations populations of Australia thereby improving health care delivery and patient health outcomes
- The adoption of a more accurate algorithm for Indigenous identification and estimates of disease incidence and outcomes in the tertiary health system has the capacity to influence policy and funding based on more robust data leading to better health outcomes and resources to treat our First Nations People
- Kotevski, A, Lamb, K, Eades, S, Blow N, Ewen, S, Dos Santos, A, Turner, M, Tran, A, Burchill, L, Closing the gap on Indigenous cardiovascular health: Improving community outcomes through policy relevant research- A health services data linkage protocol; BMC, 2020; Manuscript in preparation
- Burchill, LJ, Simpson JA, Kotevski, A, Clarke, P, Tran, A, Blow, N, Dos Santos, A, Boyle, D, Eades, S, Elkinci, E, Emery, J, Ewen S, Kelaher, M, Knight, J, Manski-Nankervis, J, Poterie A, Rosewell, G, Turner, M. Closing the gap on Indigenous cardiovascular (CV) health: Improving community outcomes through high impact policy relevant research. 2019 NHMRC Symposium November 19-20 Melbourne Australia – Oral Presentation
- Burchill, LJ, Simpson JA, Kotevski A, Clarke P, Tran A, Blow N, Dos Santos A, Boyle D, Eades S, Elkinci E, Emery J, Kelaher M, Knight J, Manski- Nankervis J, Poterie A, Haurat J, Rosewall G, Turner M. Closing the gap on Indigenous cardiovascular health: Improving community outcomes through data driven policy relevant research. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research Showcase 2020, Adelaide, Australia (Poster Presentation)
- Karen E Lamb, Ximena Camacho, Ping-wen Lee, Javier Haurat, Lukar E Thornton, Maureen Turner, Julie A Simpson, Aneta Kotevski, Luke Burchill. Health map for HealthGap: Defining a geographical catchment to examine cardiovascular risk in Australia 42nd Conference of the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics (ISCB), Lyon, France, 18-22 July 2021 (online oral presentation)
- Karen E Lamb, Health map for HealthGap: a case study of MISCH Biostatistical CollaborationSupport for quality data-based research at the University of Melbourne, Researcher Connect Tech-travaganza, 6-10thSeptember 2021 (online oral presentation)
- Karen E Lamband Luke Burchill (co-lead presenters), Ximena Camacho, Ping-wen Lee, Javier Haurat, Lukar E Thornton, Maureen Turner, Julie A Simpson, Aneta Kotevski, Health map for HealthGap: Defining a geographical catchment to examine cardiovascular risk in Victoria, Ngar-wu Wanyarra Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Conference. 13th October 2021 (online oral presentation)
- Biostatistics: It’s Good For The Heart; That’s What I Call ScienceKaren Lamb interviewed by Sophie Calabretto and Niamh Chapman: https://thatsscience.org/2021/07/25/episode-119-biostatistics-its-good-for-the-heart/
- Digsu Koye, Karen Lamb, Ping-wen Lee, Aneta Kotevski, Javier Haurat, Maureen Turner, Gabrielle Ebsworth, Tanya Druce, Karen Bryant,Eloise Price, Georgia Taylor, Julie Simpson, Luke Burchill. Guideline-based cardiovascular disease risk assessment among Indigenous Australians in a general practice setting. World Congress of Epidemiology, Melbourne, Australia, 3-6 September 2021 (online oral presentation).
- Digsu Koyeand Luke Burchill (co-lead presenters), Aneta Kotevski, Javier Haurat, Maureen Turner, Gabrielle Ebsworth, Tanya Druce, Karen Bryant, Eloise Price, Georgia Taylor, Julie Simpson. Guideline-based cardiovascular disease risk assessment among Indigenous Australians in a general practice setting. Ngar-wu Wanyarra Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Conference. 13th October 2021 (online oral presentation)
- Cardiovascular disease risk assessment among Indigenous Australians in a primary care setting.Digsu Koye, Karen Lamb, Ping-wen Lee, Aneta Kotevski, Javier Haurat, Maureen Turner, Gabrielle Ebsworth, Tanya Druce, Karen Bryant, Eloise Price, Georgia Taylor, Julie Simpson, Luke Burchill. Baker Department of Cardiovascular Health Symposium, Melbourne, Australia, 1 September 2021 (online oral presentation).
- Taylor, Georgia; Lamb, Karen; Kotevski, Aneta; Price, Eloise; Koye, Digsu; Lee, Ping-Wen; Haurat, Javier; Bryant, Karen; Ebsworth, Gabrielle; Druce, Tanya; Burchill, Luke. Differences in Indigenous Status Based Upon Statistical Algorithms in Linked Health Services Data. ANZJPH (Under Review)
- Eloise Price, Karen Lamb, Aneta Kotevski, Georgia Taylor, Digsu Koye, Ping-Wen Lee, Javier Haurat, Karen Bryant, Gabrielle Ebsworth, Tanya Druce, Luke Burchill. Linking hospital and emergency datasets to understand cardiovascular events in Victoria’s Indigenous communities; findings from a large Indigenous-governed observational study. MJA (Under Review)