Congratulations to International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) Scholarship winner Lindsay Pearce from the Justice Health Group, spanning Curtin University in Perth and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne.

Lindsay is a Research Fellow whose work uses population-level data linkage to understand and respond to the health needs of people who encounter the criminal justice system in Australia and internationally.

Linked data for justice health needs

Lindsay’s research career began in British Columbia, Canada, where she used linked data to respond to the opioid overdose public health emergency declared in 2016. After joining the Justice Health Group in 2020, she led a large population-level linkage of youth justice records spanning 2000 to 2019, integrating 20 Commonwealth and state and territory health datasets.

She now works across several multi-jurisdictional, cross-sectoral data linkage projects, with a particular interest in supplementing linked data research with qualitative, lived experience insights.

The Justice Health Group exists to fill critical evidence gaps on the health and healthcare experiences of people who encounter the criminal justice system. Criminal justice system contact is an intense marker of social and health disadvantage, with affected populations experiencing elevated rates of nearly all health issues alongside core social vulnerabilities including homelessness, poverty, and intergenerational trauma.

For Lindsay, the most powerful lesson from working with linked data is its capacity to make the invisible visible. Data linkage is a tool for generating policy-relevant evidence for socially excluded populations who are difficult to engage in primary research and often go uncounted, and as she puts it, what doesn’t get counted gets ignored.

Advocating for prison health data

Lindsay’s work supports advocacy for improved prison health data collection globally, higher healthcare standards for people in custody, and better support for people transitioning from prison back into the community. She is also involved in research supporting healthcare standards and reintegration pathways for people leaving the prison system. At IPDLN, Lindsay is looking forward to connecting with international researchers, data custodians, and government representatives to advance global prison health data collection, strengthen health equity outcomes, and gain insights into the future of population data linkage.