Our research aims to support public health programs by helping us to understand who is affected by chronic hepatitis B, where they most commonly live, how many people are receiving guideline-based care, and how we are tracking toward global and national targets for uptake. One of our key goals is to provide data to support the principle that everyone with hepatitis B, no matter where they live in Australia or what their background is, deserves access to appropriate and effective care. To support this, we generate data and reporting that identifies gaps and opportunities for improvement with a geographic focus.
Another reason this is important is that governments often make decisions about health condition funding based on how many people are affected – unfortunately, it’s really hard to get the proper support for people with hepatitis B unless we can show statistics about how much it affects communities in Australia. It also helps raise awareness, because we know hepatitis B is under-recognised by many people in the medical field, and they don’t realise how common it is in many communities.
Our research is based on lots of different methods and sources, and one of the goals is to bring together relevant information into one report, which you can find here. One of our key sources is a mathematical model that is based on a very wide range of inputs, including immunisation coverage; data about migration, births, deaths, and movement within Australia; statistics about the impact of hepatitis B treatment on reducing outcomes like liver cancer; and the number of reported diagnoses of hepatitis B each year. These allow us to put together a comprehensive estimate of the population living with hepatitis B in Australia.
When combining this number with data on prescribing and service provision from sources like Medicare, we can generate estimates on what proportion of people with hepatitis B are receiving things like regular monitoring with a hepatitis B viral load. This is how we know that only about a quarter of people with hepatitis B got a viral load test last year, and also that the number went down in 2020 for the first time in many years, likely due to disruption of healthcare and other issues during COVID-19. These sorts of statistics allow us to identify that more work is needed to improve the provision of routine monitoring for hepatitis B. We also measure this uptake according to area, so we can advocate directly to local health providers and governments about what needs to be done in their region – you can look at maps of the variation at our online mapping portal. The Mapping Project also allows us to provide data identifying things like the most common countries of birth and languages spoken for people living with hepatitis B in Australia, so that when things like programs and resources are designed, they can be done in a way that’s culturally appropriate and useful to the communities most affected. We also measure lots of other things like vaccination coverage for children, variation in prescribing by GPs compared to specialists across Australia, and antiviral treatment uptake, which you can find in the report linked above.
I’d be happy to answer any questions about our research.
Thanks very much,
Jennifer