The Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP) is a secure Commonwealth resource held by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which combines data on health, education, government payments, income and taxation, employment, and population demographics. Cancer Australia used MADIP to gain insights into the sociodemographic characteristics of populations with cancer to inform priority populations for a potential Lung Cancer Screening program in Australia and the National Pancreatic Cancer Roadmap.
The ABS provided sociodemographic data from Census respondents linked to ‘registered deaths by cause’ data, from the MADIP resource. For each initiative, sociodemographic data in applicable Census years were extracted for persons who subsequently died from lung cancer or pancreatic cancer. The sociodemographic profile of the cohorts of Australians who died of these cancers, respectively, were compared to the sociodemographic characteristics of the overall Australian population.
Analyses of the linked datasets demonstrated the disproportionate distribution of lung cancer and pancreatic cancer among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people living in more remote areas, and people living in areas of higher socioeconomic disadvantage.
The analyses also showed that lung cancer and pancreatic cancer cohorts had a low proficiency in spoken English and lower levels of educational attainment, compared to the Australian population. Further, for nearly one in five people in each cohort, English was not the main language spoken at home. The most common languages, other than English, spoken at home were Cantonese/ Mandarin, Italian, Greek, and South Slavic.
The MADIP dataset is a rich resource for examining the sociodemographic profile of people with cancer and provides valuable insights into population-level patterns in cancer which cannot readily, if at all, be gleaned from other sources. Such insights can assist targeting and tailoring of initiatives to meet the needs of diverse population groups affected by cancer in Australia.