HeSANDA Monash Node User Guides

This guide developed by the HeSANDA Monash node provides an overview for users of Health Data Australia (HDA).
HDA helps researchers discover and access health data. HDA is a registry and does not store the data itself but provides descriptions of the data from data owners' publishing partners. Using HDA, researchers can search these descriptions, find data of use to do their research, then request access to it. The request will be sent to the owner of the data to review. Data owners receive email notifications about new data requests and can then log into the HDA Data Request platform to review the request and determine whether access can be granted and then respond to the researcher requesting access. If the request is approved, the owner arranges for the researcher to be given access to the data.
The dataset descriptions (‘metadata’) contained on HDA help researchers understand the kinds of data that exist and assess whether a dataset may be of value to their research, without the need to actually access the data. In addition to metadata, data owners provide other documentation describing the data they hold, such as study protocols and data dictionaries.
Using HDA, researchers can search for data, save their searches, submit and manage data requests.