Variables requested regarding cohort demographics
| Variables | Justification |
|---|---|
| Scrambled patient ID | A unique sequence number enabling person-level analysis and linkage to PBS data set |
| Month and year of birth | To report demographics of cohort and used to stratify analyses according to age group |
| Sex | To report demographics of cohort and used to stratify analyses |
| Month and year of death (mm/yy) | Date of death, in order to censor the follow-up time for each individual in the cohort |
| Postcode of residence mapped to Statistical Local Area | Used to identify location of residence and map to indices of socioeconomic disadvantage (ie, the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA)*) and remoteness (ie, the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA)†) |
| Geographic location of residence according to the SA2 | Used to identify geographic location of residence to map prescription rates and to evaluate prescription rates according to key demographic characteristics |
*Is a product developed by the ABS that ranks areas in Australia according to relative socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage. The indexes are based on information from the 5-yearly census. Details can be found at: http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/seifa.
†The ABS’ Remoteness Areas classification. These are ‘Major Cities’, ‘Inner Regional’, ‘Outer Regional’, ‘Remote’ and ‘Very Remote’. Details have been reported in ref. 54 ,55.
ABS, Australian Bureau of Statistics; ARIA, Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia; PBS, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; SA2, Statistical Area Level 2.