Using High-Quality Linked Administrative Data to Predict the Risk of Adverse Outcomes for First Nations Youth
Date
From: Wednesday May 13, 2026, 12:30 pm
To: Wednesday May 13, 2026, 1:30 pm
Professor Stefanie Schurer demonstrates through her research that routinely collected and linked administrative data on education, health care use, and contact with the child protection and juvenile justice systems can be used to develop an informative indicator for risk of multi-dimensional adversity.
In her paper, she uses data from a novel linked administrative data repository – the Child and Youth Development Research Program (CYDRP) – selecting all First Nations youth who were born between 2000 and 2006 and are observed living in Australia’s Northern Territory (N=9,869). The study tests a simple index of adversity that counts up to seven exposures to events with assumed negative consequences (low school attendance and achievement, diagnoses of mental health and substance use disorders, child protection notifications and maltreatment substantiations, and criminal charges) between ages 12 and 18.
The results show that this index is strongly predictive of suicide and suicide attempts, an important public policy challenge. There is substantial variation in adversity experienced by individuals across communities, ranging from an average of two to four adversities in remote communities, and slightly lower overall levels in more urban communities. Importantly, more than one in two children experience low levels of adversity.
Family-fixed factors explain 7.5 times more of the variation in adversity than community-fixed factors, suggesting that family-specific policy initiatives are likely to be more effective than broader programs targeting communities.
Join us from 12.30 - 1.30pm at 123 Pitt Street (Level 24) or online via Microsoft Teams.
This is a free event for members and $10 for Non-Members
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The timing of this event is (SYD/CBR/MEL).
Stefanie Schurer is a Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney. She is a human development economist with strong foundations in policy evaluation methods. Over the past decade, she has been part of an Australian-wide movement to link large-scale administrative data sources to assess the design and effects of social and regulatory policies affecting vulnerable communities and families. Her program of research centres around paternalistic government intervention, with evaluations of involuntary income management, COVID-19 lockdowns, compulsory schooling, forced separation, novel interventions in child protection (NSW) and—in the Northern Territory—alcohol restrictions and mandatory care at birth. Some of her studies provided expert evidence to Australia’s Senate (2019) and to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (2024), demonstrating the unintended harms of coercive welfare policies. Until 2025 she held office as secretary and board member of the International Association for Economic Research of Indigenous Peoples (an American Economic Association affiliate), advised the Charles Perkins Centre's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Steering Committee, is a member of the Aboriginal-led OCHRE network, and engages with the newly founded Canberra-based Australian Centre of Evaluation and the wider public as member of the National Economic Panel. An award-winning scholar, she is the recipient of the 2025 FASS Senior Researcher Excellence award, the 2021 Australian Young Economist of the Year award, and USyd’s Vice-Chancellor Award for Excellence in Research and Teaching (2021), among others. She has over 45 peer reviewed publications and book chapters. She has built strong networks of funded research collaborations across disciplines, jurisdictions and continents. Her current research is funded by the Danish Rockwool Foundation and the NHMRC.
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Venue
Macquarie University City Campus
Level 24, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000