Child Development and Education Research Partnership Project
Executive Summary
The NT Government has contributed $400,000 over the past four years as a founding
partner of the SA NT Datalink consortium. This has enabled the development of the
technical capacity to support research being conducted through the de-identified linkage of
NT population datasets to conduct policy-relevant analyses that were not previously
possible.
All data linkage research projects managed by SA NT Datalink require the approval of a
NHMRC accredited ethics committee. The data linkage process ensures the strict separation
of the data content from personal identification details.
The NT data-linkage demonstration study has now completed most of the lead up work
required in the de-identification and linkage of selected data items from each of the first
four administrative datasets being linked.
The SA NT Datalink Demonstration Study has established the feasibility of data-linkage
analysis to make better use of existing NT administrative data. This has provided the
foundation for the proposed ‘Project’ component of the NTG-Menzies CCDE Research
Partnership.
The overall aim of the NTG-Menzies CCDE Research Partnership project is to build upon
this experience to create a NT-specific study population based on de-identified linked
data on NT-born children, spanning their mother’s first antenatal health care visit through
to their educational outcomes in school year 9 covering the 1993-2006 birth cohorts.
The Partnership Project Objectives:
1. Investigating and reporting the social, individual, health and family factors that
influence achievement in AEDI (Australian Early Development Index) and
NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) tests among
Northern Territory children.
2. Investigating the significant differences between the number of children in birth,
school enrolment and school attendance cohorts.
3. Investigating the child health, parental, family and community factors that relate to
children’s vulnerability to child abuse and neglect and the longer-term
developmental consequences of such vulnerability.
4. Investigating the extent to which NT early childhood development data and its
markers match and diverge from those in South Australia
Child Development and Education Research Partnership Project
Page 1
Expected publication outputs
This project will result in the production of several peer reviewed journal publications and
proposed monographs that will detail the findings of the data-linkage analysis of the
perinatal, child health, AEDI, and family and community-level determinants of school
attendance and NAPLAN results in the NT.
Why is this project important?
There is widespread scientific agreement that the early years of a child’s life are of
critical importance in shaping longer-term outcomes in health, development, learning and
wellbeing across the lifespan. It is acknowledged that children’s development is shaped
by a complex interplay between individual biological factors and a range of social,
economic and environmental factors.
For government policy to be better informed by evidence we need to improve our
understanding of how various factors impact at the population level and for significant
sub-populations. It is vital that the design, implementation and evaluation of these
services is based on reliable evidence, and a systematic understanding of the complex
interplay between individual, environmental and social forces shaping the lives of
children in the NT population context. The de-identified linkage of administrative data
from different NT sources enables research and policy questions being investigated in
ways not previously possible.
Further information
Should you require more detailed information, please refer to the report Child Development
and Education Research Partnership Project available at www INSERT LINK. This provides
a detailed description of the ethics approval process, the data-linkage methodology and
datasets being linked, the study design, sample frame, analysis plan together with the
timeframe for the production, reporting and publication of the project findings.
Child Development and Education Research Partnership Project
Page 2