Bushfires regularly pose a threat to many parts of Australia. Fuelled by extreme heatwaves and prolonged drought, Australia’s 2019–20 bushfires burned more than 24 million hectares, directly causing 33 deaths as well as an estimated 450 more from smoke inhalation[1].
Understanding the relationships between bushfires and health requires detailed, consistent and accessible data. However, producing these data assets has been challenging due to issues related to privacy, confidentiality and accessibility.
The ARDC co-invested in a project led by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) to develop a digital data asset as part of the Bushfire Data Challenges program, aiming to improve Australia’s resilience, response to and recovery from bushfires. This project provides valuable data on health service use potentially relevant to bushfires, allowing researchers and policymakers to identify patterns that could be used to inform future decision-making. The ARDC assisted AIHW in making the data asset FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) for the benefit of future research. This project worked in collaboration with another of the Bushfire Data Challenges projects on assessing the impact of bushfire smoke on health.
Building a National Data Asset on Health Service Use
Dr Vanessa Prescott, Head of the Prevention and Environmental Health Unit at AIHW led the project team and described its inception.
“Health service data is often publicly available only at monthly frequency or less. Often, data are presented only at the level of states and territories, and not regionally. This is because there are privacy and confidentiality considerations that need to be taken into account with health data.”
The project was designed to ensure that the data was available at a suitable frequency and finer geography but still published within the required privacy, confidentiality, and data governance frameworks. Researchers collated data on weekly health service use over the last 20 years, organised by specific geographic areas – Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4) regions – to allow for detailed analysis of how health service use varies over time and across different locations.
The data asset contains information on hospitalisations, emergency department presentations, Medicare Benefits Schedule service claims, and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme prescriptions claimed for different health conditions. These include, but are not limited to, respiratory, cardiovascular, mental health conditions, dehydration and burns.
“The project built on previous AIHW projects by presenting data over a longer period and by adding to the data, including chronic lower respiratory conditions as a broad group, as well as specific conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” said Dr Prescott.
Insights into the Effects of Bushfires on Health Outcomes
The data revealed a substantial rise in health service use in Australia’s southeast, particularly for respiratory conditions such as asthma, coinciding with areas affected by bushfires or smoke during the 2019–20 bushfires. Bushfire smoke generates airborne particles of varying size, which affect air quality. Air quality monitoring stations record data on particles known to cause impacts on health. These include particles that are 2.5 micrometres or smaller, referred to as PM2.5 particles, as well as coarser particles (PM10).
During one week in January 2020 in the Australian Capital Territory, when hourly PM2.5 particulate matter air pollution levels peaked at around 100 times the PM2.5 hourly standard (25 µg/m3), hospital admissions for chronic respiratory conditions increased three-fold compared to the same period the previous year. Similarly, during a week when hourly air pollution levels in Melbourne peaked at around 15 times the hourly standard for PM2.5, admissions in inner Melbourne were 2.5 times greater than a comparable period in the previous year.
AIHW recently published the data in an online web report, which provides interactive displays that allow the user to explore and draw insights. The data are downloadable, enabling researchers to identify patterns and correlations between environmental events, such as bushfires, and spikes in health service use associated with particular health conditions. The data will also enable policymakers to make informed decisions about effective prevention, service provision including workforce, adaptation and disaster response strategies.
“The resource has the potential to allow people working in the health sector to understand the likely patterns of service use that could occur if, for example, there were another event on the scale of the 2019–20 bushfires. Researchers can analyse the data and draw insights and identify topics for more detailed research,” said Dr Prescott.
While this project focused on the impact of bushfires on health service use, Dr Prescott noted that the data asset is expected to have broader applications and could be applied to a range of other environmental events that have substantial health impacts.
“This project demonstrates how information and statistics can be used to inform and support better policy and service delivery decisions, leading to better health and wellbeing for all Australians,” said Dr Prescott.
The project was led by AIHW with ARDC co-investment. Project partners include:
- Frontier SI (Australian Environmental Health)
- Queensland University of Technology
- the Centre for Safe Air (previously known as the Centre for Air Pollution, Energy and Health Research)
- the Healthy Environment and Lives (HEAL) Network
- the Australian National University (ANU)
- the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
The ARDC’s contribution to making this data asset FAIR will enable researchers to utilise the data more effectively, facilitating critical research that enhances the resilience of Australian communities against environmental challenges. The ARDC continues to work with AIHW through the People Research Data Commons.
Visit the interactive web report on the AIHW website.
Aggregating and Integrating Data on Health Outcomes Associated with Bushfires at a National Scale (https://doi.org/10.47486/DC009) received investment from the ARDC. The ARDC is enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
Written by Dr Cintya Dharmayanti. Reviewed by Jo Savill, Kylie Black, Miranda Liu and Dr Sheida Hadavi (ARDC), Dr Vanessa Prescott, Imogen Halstead and David Wong (AIHW), and the AIHW media team.
Reference
- Cook, Dowdy, Knauer, Meyer, Canadell, Briggs. Australia’s Black Summer of fire was not normal – and we can prove it. CSIRO. 2021. https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2021/november/bushfires-linked-climate-change Jump back