Kerrie Mengersen 0:03 Thank you very much for that. I'm going to just share some slides. And we're going to go into a panel session. So stay with me. All right. So thank you very much for the opportunity to have this panel session and acknowledging that I'm in Yugara and Turrbal land here. And I'm proud to be part of the very long tradition of learning and teaching that's happened on these lands here. We want to talk in this panel session about moving towards or proposing and having a discussion about a trusted online and Environmental Health Decision Support Platform. And the this is because we feel that one of the major challenges that we all face is the way that we can access and accessing data about exposures and health outcomes, and also the analysis and reports about those data. So when we can canvased in previous discussions about the challenges that we face if we're going to move forward, we need to know where we are now. And if we want to know about where we are now, it's important that we know what kind of data we have, and what kind of studies we have and how we can access those in order to understand where we're at, and then be able to move forward. Now, we've heard some great talks about the type of analysis and information that's around and it's setting a really good framework for what we're going to be talking about here. So what I want to do is to have a talk about the desired outcomes of this session, I want to propose a vision and straw man proposal, and then invite some people who know about this area to talk, to take some questions about this particular proposal. And then I'm going to ask the audience to provide some input about this as well because we really want to know whether this is something that we should take forward as part of this programme in HEAL. So if the objectives for this session are to understand if there is an appetite for a trusted online environmental health decision support platform, to consider the challenges and the benefits of such platform, and to consider what a prioritised list of activities might look like to address these identified challenges. So if we look at where we are now, then we can think about this challenge that we have about actually obtaining data and reports. And if we could put it in the context of FAIR data, then we might think about this as being unfair, you know, can we actually find the data and the reports about a particular aspect of health and exposure that we might be an environment that we might be interested in? Are those data accessible? Are the data interoperable or the system's interoperable? And are they reusable? And most of the time, I would argue, the answer is no without a lot of effort. We also have an unintegrated knowledge base. So we have these data that are siloed, we also have analytics then that are written for a particular challenge or a particular issue, and then put down again. Similarly with the data, we collect those data for a particular challenge or the issue, and we drag them from the different places, and then we put it, we finished that particular study and then we put the data down again. And similarly with platforms. So we have this, we, we have this issue of, you know, having to maintain software, having to keep data, having to keep models, having to keep the system, these diverse systems, and up to date, and also then thinking about how they interrelate, and then also, we tend to do all of the analysis and then we throw it away and then we do it all again when the next challenge comes up. So what we have now is this sort of uncoordinated activity. So we have this in data, we have it in analytics, we have it in platforms, and we have it in our ecosystems. So if we want to move forward as HEAL, then can we do better than this? So there's two things: can we do better in the operation of this? And also, if we want to know where we are in terms of the science, how do we find that out without a lot of effort? If we're going to move forward, we need to know where we are now. So what we'd like to do, as part of our group the Data and Decision Sciences group, is to think about what's the solution to this issue. And of course, there are many solutions and we're going to be working together to address the many challenges that we all face. But one of those is what we've been talking about, is just this, where is the data and the where are the data in the reports now. So if we want to envisage a solution for that, then what we'd like to think about is, as one of the first discussion points for the group is the construction of this interactive online resource that enables users to find the data, find reports, link existing or emerging platforms that access expertise. And then, as we, as this resource grows, access gold standard methods, be able to run analysis, be able to gain insight from these data. Now, this is not a proposal about building the one database to rule them all and aggregating the data into it. Where data are available, that would be really useful. And something that number of us are attempting to do in a bit through the various platforms as we've talked about in the last session. But in this case, even if it's about understanding where those data are, where those studies are, who's, who are the experts in the space, and whereas the information available for particular issues and challenges. So even if we have that at some metadata level, then that would be really useful. So if we think about the principles for this, it must be inclusive and collaborative. It must be a coordinated effort across the different groups, we must have careful stakeholder consultation, it must be a whole enterprise supported initiative, it must have continued support and currency, and we must ensure that whatever we create actually delivers in early usable outputs. So if we think about where we are now, and where we could go with such a platform, then we can see that we could benefit from an infrastructure perspective, from a data perspective, from reporting, from insights, from governance, and from decision-making. So going from those silos with undisciplined, unfindable data, scattered reports, partial insights, immature governance, and fractured decision-making to something that's more connected, audible, ordered, findable, federated, collated, cohesive, mature, and cointegrated. So that's the proposal. And if we think about what we might gain from that, then here's some potential benefits and then I'll leave you to to read them. But I'll point out that this could be a coordinated resource that could benefit all of us. We can have, we can move towards the need that we all identify for some sort of standardisation of tracking and reporting. Hopefully, this will reduce duplication and redundancy of effort and it will help us to have make informed decisions. So we can see here that if we do this, then this information source will not only be good for researchers, but it would also be good for managers and policymakers as well when they're fast, when they're after fast information, access to information and making fast decisions. So we could really use this resource as a way to be able to to bridge the evidence to policy gap as well. So we were contemplating like, what would happen if we don't do this, if we start HEAL and the steps to the future for HEAL without having this kind of resource. Then what we think is that we would actually have health and planning, adverse health and planning outcomes, we would also have adverse economic outcomes, and we would have adverse research outcomes. So that's the proposal and what I'd like to do is to turn this over now to a panel and our panel members here, who have kindly agreed to discuss this topic. Dr Claire sparks, who's from AIHW, we have Paula Fievez from FrontierSI, we have Mark Taylor from EPA Victoria, we have Karen Bleicher from the Sax Institute, and Stuart Barr from AURIN. Now, these people we've deliberately selected because they are experts in their field. They work closely in this area of needing to use data and to access data and information arising from the data and also the are outside the academic sphere. So we really wanted to hear from people who are really at the coalface with this kind of issue. So thank you very much all of you for agreeing to participate in this. I'm going to ask the questions in open-ended manner and I'd like all of you to feel free to jump in with a response. And then to talk to each other as well, if you'd like and then we'll move to the next question. So these are the questions that I'd like to ask you. And the first one is: What's your opinion of this straw man proposal, to have this trusted online environmental health decision support platform? So first off, I'll just ask Paula, would you like to start the discussion? Paula Fievez 11:16 Yeah. And I think you know the answer from me, Kerrie. I think it's an absolute essential initiative really. At the end of the day, I guess this has to happen. All the things that you spoke about earlier, about the duplication, we just see that so often, and you see, you know, new studies coming together and people doing exactly the same task over and over and over: where do I find the data? Who can I go to let us apply for the data? Let's see if we can access the data and then let's process the data and then then analyse it. And then somebody else wants to do a similar study using similar data, they've got to start right back from scratch. So for me the biggest benefit of something like that is just getting rid of that duplicated effort. So absolutely supported by me. Kerrie Mengersen 12:04 TThanks, Paula. So coming to any of the other panel members who would like to make a comment on this? Claire Sparke 12:13 Kerrie, it's Claire here. I agree with Paula and you, we would strongly support this. From our organisation perspective, we get asked for similar data for similar projects all the time. And we want to support people getting that data to do the good work that the research community does in this space. So I think it's a no brainer if that can be done. I think it's worth obviously looking at what is already out there. Maybe not starting from scratch on this. But yeah, as Paula said, to reduce that duplication I think is really important. And from our perspective, I guess it's governance that gets in the way for a lot of this work. Not that we're suggesting that... Not that I'm suggesting that this platform would be all about governance, but if there was some effort put into that, thinking about that, you know, you extracting once for multiple use use cases, that would be useful. Kerrie Mengersen 13:34 Thanks, Claire. That's great. And I know that there are people who are listening to this, participating in this session, who also have some suggestions about platforms that we could, should consider to be integrated. And as we talked about, you know, this could be a way of networking between those platforms that we've heard about, but certainly we don't need to start from scratch. We've got some great foundations. We heard about some of them, CARDAT and AusEnHealth, and so on earlier. Okay. Mark, would you like to comment on this at all from your perspective from EPA Victoria? Martine Dennekamp 14:17 Hi Kerrie. I'm not sure if Mark is here, but I was originally gonna be on this anyway. So yeah, I thought, you know, I might as well butt-in. I've just messaged him: do you know that you're actually with your face on the screen? So, as you know, you know, I've obviously been in the steering committee and I'm also across CARDAT. And in principle, I think it's a great idea. There's obviously quite a few things that I think we're going to have to sort out. And one of them is actually something that I even put in the chat there as well, which is it'd be great to get small spatial scale health data but there's obviously ethical considerations with this. So that will require a bit of thinking, I think, you know, ideally, we want SA1 data if we could. And the other thing is, in terms of when data comes from academia, there's often an IP associated with that. So, you know, there's also a few issues there to sort out but I mean, in principle, yes, it'd be great to have a dataset like this. Thhe one thing that we do need to also think about, I think, is that there is the metadata that goes with it. So it's really clear what the strength or the limitations are, and just have that background so that when that data is being used that, you know, it's used appropriately. Kerrie Mengersen 15:51 Yes, thank you, Martine. I think they're very good points. Certainly we need to be aware of the provenance of data of all kinds, the sovereignty of those data, and also what constraints there are about using them. And I totally agree about the metadata. And really, I think that's probably one of the most important things if we can find out what data are there even and the metadata, I mean, then, and the permissions to use it and how to access that or who to ask. And that would be just such a bonus, and I think something we don't have at the moment. So thank you. Okay, so, Stuart I'm going to ask you about this second question. Perhaps you'd like to talk to the first question as well. You're intimately involved with, with AURIN and building platforms like this. What sort of activities do you think would be required to create such a platform? And and also, in your response here, what's your opinion of having such a platform? Stuart Barr 17:00 Thanks, Kerrie. Well, first, second question first, and like everybody on the panel, I suspect everybody in in the audience, you know, I think the argument for having such a capability or platform moving forward is very strong and I would actually extend it beyond just environmental health and actually say that, you know, if we are going to be able to make positive interventions today and into the future. This is clearly in terms of population, wellbeing, health, livability of cities, etc., this is very much a sort of multi-dimensional, multi-objective problem. And it's not just solving this for environmental health data, which is challenging itself, but across all dimensions that are impacting our populace in Australia. So all the way from the engineer, environmental, and the social dimensions to the built environments. And so we've got a big, big challenge on our hands if we want to tackle this and do it from this sort of multi-dimensional perspective. In terms of how, I think the previous speakers have actually touched on some of the key things that we would need to start with, and that is coming together as a community and starting to develop first principles: that governance framework, the standards, the protocols, and the procedures that we would use to develop such a federated, geographically distributed, environmental health data analytics and decision support framework. And we can't, as you've correctly pointed out, ever hoped to achieve this by having a single, all singing, all dancing, monolithic database source of all knowledge. This is ultimately always going to be federated and geographically distributed. And the way you tackle that is coming up with the metadata framework and governance structure, and process, and protocols because that's what you can do that's new and that's what you can do to reach out and give those end points to where all the data repositories are, where the analytics is sitting. And also critically, where the high value outputs of research are being generated. And stored based on that data and the analytics. I think there's a really important component here about remembering the outputs from the research as being a key component of any decision support system or capability that you might want to build. So I would start very much and look at this actually, as a metadata, meta-information challenge rather than one of, you know, how do we bring 2530 homes and platforms all together? That that just won't work. Kerrie Mengersen 20:14 Yes, thank you, Stuart. I think we're on the same page there. So that's excellent. Karrin, how would this affect you? And how would this, you know, as from the Sax, from the perspective of the Sax Institute, you know, you obviously are involved in data and the 45&Up studies is a great national asset. So a platform like this, would this be useful to you? Would it be something that the Sax Institute would be, would find benefit in and what activities would you recommend for a us if we were considering doing this as part of the HEAL Network? Kerrin Bleicher 20:55 Thanks, Kerrie. Can you hear me? 'Cause I'm having my network dropping in and out. Oh great. Um, so I guess they're even within my team, for example, the 45&Up study, and we're dealing with many researchers. We've had over 800 researchers user study and people presenting here, Ivan and Geoff and many others have used the 45&Up study. But even then, with that sort of level of knowledge, we still find that there are current challenges in sourcing out, sourcing what data is available for Environmental Health Research. And you know, who to contact to get that data, even if it's sort of government administrative data. So I think, when we're kind of quite expert in the field and had that difficulty and challenge, it's just unimaginable for younger researchers in this space, or newer researchers in this space. So I guess that's one point that I want to make. So because I think this is essential, it's just has to happen, to have that metadata repository. And I think the other thing to think about is that it's not just about the data, it's really a backbone to knowledge management. Without knowing where data is, of course, people might not even get involved in the first place. And you do want that volume of people using and accessing the metadata and getting involved in environmental and health research. But you want inclusivity and you want diversity. And you also, that's not just across different types of researchers who are in or people who are impacted communities, but also across different fields, whether that's academic or policy, or planning people. So I think, you know, it's an absolute must have that repository, that you and you need to have that broad support. And I think one of the things we've talked about quite a bit of what are the outputs. And I think we need to think about outputs and be really clear that outputs are well beyond academia and they really need to sort of go into that policy space. And so I would really hope that the activities that are undertaken, I'll just mention that in a the moment, but really, actually have a focus on what the impact can be of the Environmental Health Research. So it's not yet so it does have an impact and impact beyond academia. And I think that is was Alistair who was talking about that sort of frustration around the last decade: massive scientific progress and understanding, but actually policies gone. Has it progressed, shall we say, to be kind possibly? Well, maybe recent recent times. So I think you know, that the activity, certainly around a broad engagement it's making sure that we're moving from sort of making sure it's not just about data availability and mapping that, but it is about optimising knowledge. And I would hope, maybe identifying opportunities, and the know-how to impact policy and practice. I think it's around resources and scoping, and that sort of leadership, and a broad based which to draw those ideas from. Kerrie Mengersen 24:20 Yes, thank you. That's very helpful. And so, Paula I'm going to come back to you then. So, I mean, you've thought quite a lot about this. And would you I'm going to ask each of you actually, what your what the main activities that you would see that we would need to be thinking about to go forward. So some of you have touched on this, but that you might either reiterate that or say something different. So I'm going to start Paula. Paula Fievez 24:52 Yeah, and I just wanted to note, a couple of messages in the chat about, you know, looking at a whole new platform will just be duplication in itself. And I think, you know, when we've been talking about this idea about coming up with a complex platform, it was definitely acknowledging what's already available, ensuring that this just isn't another one platform. But I think the the challenge that we have is that if everybody's wants to make their one platform, the platform, we're going to run into trouble. That's why I think the first activity has to be building that consortium of stakeholders who all want the same thing who may already be involved in building platforms and come together, because if we compete, there are going to be many platforms, and we're going to keep buying into the very same problem. So for me one of the very first thing is bringing people together with a common vision, building that stakeholder group, and then moving forward. And then I think the second thing, very importantly, is coming up with common and agreed national environmental health indicators, because at the moment, people are using different indexes and indicators for different studies. And I don't think we have a common understanding of which are the nationally agreed upon ones for Australia. So for me, that's another big activity that would need to be done as a fundamental, I guess, a knowledge base to underpin anything that we do going forward. Kerrie Mengersen 26:24 Okay, thanks, Paula. Claire, what about you? Claire Sparke 26:30 Yeah, I would echo that this shouldn't replace platforms, I guess, maybe that maybe the word doesn't work. We have a number of specific websites at the AIHE we're calling clearing houses. So it's where you get your reports and access to data, links to other websites or platforms that where you can access data, that kind of thing. One example is our aged care Clearing House, the other one is the indigenous closing the gap one. So I think it's, yeah, maybe there's some sort of discussion to be had, if this would be moved forward by the HEAL networker to sort of name and not not cause confusion, if that makes any helpful. Yeah. I mean, other things, getting the right stakeholders on board. I would suggest talking to, there's a lot going on in government about trying to get a lot of data together as well, not just in academia. So we have the newly formed Australian climate service, which is really focused on the environmental data at the moment, but I know they're going to be moving to the health data as well. The Australian Digital Atlas that Geoscience Australia, so it's, I would be, that's just federal government, I'm sure there's a lot more going on at local levels as well. So I think it would be good to engage broadly there as well as with the research community. And some sort of framework for high level monitoring environmental health moving forward, I guess it's very similar to what Paula said in the indicator space would be really helpful. I know there's, that Victoria has quite a few. There's some in the state of the environment report. There's lots out there. But yeah, trying to work out the the main things that people are trying to do research and analysis on, because, you know, equally that would lead to what goes on this website, or what goes on this platform Clearing house, whatever you want to call it. Kerrie Mengersen 28:48 Great. Thank you. I think we've got resource at the moment. So yes, I agree, thank you. Thanks, Claire, that's really helpful. Okay, in the interest of time, I'm going to move to just the last question, and this is a question of (get it up here) on what would be the benefits of such a platform? So I'm going to ask Stuart, for you. One, one primary benefit of such a platform. Stuart Barr 29:15 It ould allow us to generate a consistent and objective set of indicators and improved understanding and knowledge. I think knowledge was one of the terms that was used earlier on around the current and potentially the future of population health of the Australian nation. It's as simple as that: without it, it's very difficult to think how you would make decisions over resourcing and social infrastructure into the future. Kerrie Mengersen 29:51 Okay, thank you. Um, Mark or Martine? Martine Dennekamp 30:00 Apologies on behalf of Mark, he was unable to make it. Kerrie Mengersen 30:03 Thank you for stepping in Martine, I really appreciate it. Martine Dennekamp 30:06 That's all good. I was basically gonna echo what Stuart said, which is around consistency and quality. There's one more thing that I think would be good is the fact that it will be easier to compare. I don't know, when you compare states, for example, because the states seem to still work a little bit in silos sometimes. So this would be really beneficial. That, you know, we compare the same and then we're able to compare between states. Kerrie Mengersen 30:34 Okay, perfect. Thank you. Kerrin? Kerrin Bleicher 30:40 Um, ditto the comments so far, you know, consistentcy in quality and comparability. I think also its capability. It's about building that capability in health environmental research. And I think beyond that is the capability to translate that research. I would hope that that would be an additional part, even though it's not normal metadata platform, those ideas around data visualisation tools, to use all that kind of background could be maybe a second stage. But it's certainly an important stage as part of that storytelling and translation and getting policymakers and planenrs is to listen to the evidence. (Thank you. Very good points). I do have to say the Australian quality for safety and health care commission from the safety and quality and health care actually had a session yesterday around building a platform, pretty similar, actually, in a way. So a one stop shop, searchable database on all this the health research that's going on. So definitely that environmental scan is very important (Yeah, thank you) in the what we're trying to do. Kerrie Mengersen 31:49 That's right, there's so much activity in this area that you're right, and others have touched on it as well. So we really do need to make sure that we connect rather than reproduce. Claire? Kerrin Bleicher 31:59 Just wait, just one more thing on something Claire said and it was around, so that framework, and I think was clear around indicators and framework. And that's used very much in sort of the health service performance space. And I think that would be a great opportunity to bring that together along with, you know, consistent definitions, like Meteor where you got same formatting and it makes it makes it much more usable, the data sources and that get that cross jurisdictional agreements. I think there, there are benefits that would flow as well. Kerrie Mengersen 32:33 Yeah, thank you. That's great. Claire, what's your primary benefit, do you think? Claire Sparke 32:41 Um, I think just being able to find things Kerrie. I known that's very basic. You know, and reduce that duplication. But yeah, at the end of the day, as what Kerrin just said, knowledge, translation to policy. That's what is of most, you know, always research is most useful for and I've just noticed, somebody talked about our health metadata resource Meteor in the chat, that's certainly something that could be expanded. I agree. Just to note, also, with Kerrin talking about the health performance indicators, we actually have environmental indicators in the Australian Health performance framework that aren't all developed yet. So there's a really strong use case there for us to to get those developed. They are currently empty. We do need to develop them. Kerrie Mengersen 33:43 Okay, great, thank you. Well, you're talking to the right people, so I think we've got some great people who can, who can, who will be very interested in that and also potentially want to talk to you about it.