The Centre for Health Research Illawarra Shoalhaven Population (CHRISP) ceased operations on 31 March 2023. The recommended first point of contact for queries is the Research Operations unit for the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District.
STATEMENT FROM THE ILLAWARRA SHOALHAVEN LOCAL HEALTH DISTRICT (SEPTEMBER 2022) IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR RESEARCH TEAMS (MARCH 2023)
CHRISP operates the Illawarra Health Information Platform (IHIP), an ethically approved research databank and health records linkage system.
The research databank and linkage protocol were approved by the shared University of Wollongong and Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District Health and Medical Human Research Ethics Committee. IHIP's research databank was ethically approved on the basis that it is non-identifiable. This means that individual identifiers are not held in the IHIP research databank, which protects the privacy of individuals.
A formal governance process has been established to approve research which uses IHIP data. This process, described in the CHRISP Data Policy, ensures that research using IHIP complies with relevant ethical and privacy guidelines and legislation. This includes Commonwealth privacy legislation, NSW privacy and health administration regulations, NSW Health policy directives and guidelines, NSW Information and Privacy Commission statutory guidelines, Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council guidelines, National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines, ISLHD policy directives and guidelines and University of Wollongong research policies. View the Governance and policies page for more information.
Research projects which use IHIP data require approval from an ethics committee unless the CHRISP Executive Steering Committee determines that the project can be exempted from ethical review. All projects which involve data linkage, or which are subject to specific legislative or ethical conditions (for example, research regarding Aboriginal communities), require ethical review.
All data custodian and/or ethics approvals are submitted to the CHRISP Executive Steering Committee as part of the approval process. Researchers are required to sign a CHRISP Data User Agreement which includes the conditions of use of data and a Confidentiality Undertaking prior to CHRISP providing data to the research team.