Dementias Platform Australia (DPAU) provides Australian researchers with access to research data from multiple dementia studies carried out in Australia and internationally.
DPAU is led by UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) working in partnership with SeRP Australia at Monash University, Melbourne.
DPAU also operates in partnership with Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), who also occupy a SeRP tenancy for their Data Platform. The partnership builds on DPUK’s experience of the principles of researcher co-design, security by design and privacy by design. This collaborative relationship enables the sharing of technical assets and approaches to best practice.
DPAU generates insights into ageing, age-related diseases and dementias including Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
Data from the Australia Institute of Health and Welfare1 and the Australian Bureau of Statistics2, reveals that dementia is second only to heart disease as a leading cause of death in Australia. Dementia accounted for 14,500 deaths in 2020 with an estimated 400,000 Australians currently living with the condition1.
The SeRP Australia implementation is deployed at Monash University through an ARDC-supported research platform project. ARDC, the Australian Research Data Commons, is a body established to develop digital research infrastructures, across Australia, to improve data quality and researcher access. SeRP Australia provides a secure online data analysis environment, making it easy for researchers to comply with ethical and regulatory requirements for using sensitive data.
DPAU data…
SeRP’s technology supports the secure sharing of sensitive health data, enabling researchers to gain new insights on ageing without jeopardising patient confidentiality.
“The establishment of Dementia Platform Australia (DPAU), led by The Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW Sydney, has benefited from the existing SeRP instance at Monash University, Australia. Utilising an established SeRP instance has facilitated a relatively straight forward implementation of DPAU. SeRP is a trusted and proven technology and DPAU is confident that SeRP is the optimal solution for our data sharing platform.” - Vibeke S. Catts, PhD, Research Manager, Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA)
DPAU offers critical information about disease trends and risk factors, outcomes of treatment or public health interventions as well as methods of care and associated costs. DPAU also provides a secure environment for the analysis of genomic and imaging data.
"We are delighted to see this partnership between Monash University and Dementia Platform Australia become a reality. This partnership provides Dementia Platform Australia with a customisable research platform that harnesses Monash University expertise and infrastructure, to manage the complex requirements of collaborative research and data management and data sharing in a safe and secure environment"- Mat Ishac, HELIX, Monash University
1 https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/dementia/dementia-in-aus/contents/summary
2 https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/latest-release
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