Probabilistic linkage of national immunisation and state-based health records for a cohort of 1.9 million births to evaluate Australia's childhood immunisation program.

Abstract

Introduction: Several countries have developed national immunisation registers, but only the Nordic countries have linked their registers to other health data in order to comprehensively evaluate the `real world' effectiveness of vaccines. Nordic countries can link datasets deterministically using the national person identifier, but most countries, including Australia, don't have such an identifier to enable this type of linkage. Objectives: To describe the process for assembling a linked study cohort that will enable the conduct of population-based studies related to immunisation and immunisation policy. Methods: National death and immunisation databases along with state health data (notifi..