Eligibility: All twins born or living in Victoria.
Data routinely collected by State Governments (such as hospital data) are increasingly being used in health research. Twins are often excluded from these research projects because it is difficult to identify them in the data. This means twins are being underrepresented in health research, which limits the potential of improving the health of twins and their families.
Twins Research Australia (TRA) are working with the Victorian Department of Health to develop new methods to identify twin pairs in their health databases. These methods include matching twins using characteristics that are similar for twin pairs, such as their date of birth, location of birth and maternal characteristics. With your permission, we would like to let the Department of Health know that you are a twin, and securely share your details with them, so we can test and improve these methods further.
This project will:
- Increase the capacity for new large-scale twin studies
- Reduce the number of studies that require your time to participate in
- Help ensure twins are not left out of future population studies in Victoria and Australia
Researchers: Dr Jesse Young and Prof John Hopper, The University of Melbourne
What is involved?
Participation will only take 5-10 minutes of your time. You will be asked to provide consent for TRA to share your records (including your name, date of birth, and most recent address) with the Department of Health in a secure way and only for the purposes listed in this project. We will also ask you to confirm your current address and state of birth to ensure we send the Health Department the correct details.
Who is eligible?
All twins born or living in Victoria are eligible.
Recruitment:
April-September 2023. Now closed.
