Congratulations to International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) Scholarship winner Dr Lachlan Dalli from Monash University.
Dr Dalli is an early-career epidemiologist and health services researcher from the Big Data, Epidemiology and Prevention Division of Stroke and Ageing Research, School of Clinical Sciences and Victorian Heart Institute, Monash University. His pharmacoepidemiology research uses linked datasets to advance understanding of the safe, appropriate and equitable use of medicines for stroke prevention.
Using linked data to improve stroke care
Over the past eight years, Dr Dalli’s research has examined how stroke medications are prescribed, used, and perform in real-world practice, including hospital-level variation and patient-related disparities in medication use across age, sex, and country of birth. Much of this work has centred on integrating data from the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry with other government-held datasets to evaluate stroke care and outcomes and support quality improvement in hospitals.
As part of the international INSPIRE-STROKE network, Dr Dalli is leading research to standardise how post-stroke medication adherence is calculated and reported in pharmaceutical claims datasets, enabling more reliable comparisons between countries.
For Dr Dalli, the most important lesson from working with linked data is the value of early and thorough planning. Projects should be designed collaboratively with experts in linked data analysis and subject-matter knowledge, underpinned by a well-documented protocol that ensures transparency, consistency, and reproducibility.
Childhood stroke research
A recent career highlight for Dr Dalli was leading a population-based study published in Neurology (2026) that used linked data from the Vaccine Safety Health Link, a Victoria-wide platform updated monthly with vaccination, infection, and hospital administrative data. The study generated the first Australian estimate of childhood stroke incidence, which was 1 in 18,000 children, and found that stroke risk doubled following infection, with no statistically significant increase following vaccination. The research was supported by the Heart Foundation and Jack Brockhoff Foundation. At IPDLN, Dr Dalli is looking forward to connecting with colleagues in linked data research, learning cutting-edge analytical methods, and gaining insights into the diverse work advancing healthcare and patient outcomes in this rapidly evolving field.