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Objectives: To Introduce the Western Australian Health Services Research Linked Database as infrastructure to support aetlologic, utilisation and outcomes research. To compare the study population, data resources, technical systems and organisational supports with international best practice in record linkage and health research.

Method and Results: The WA Linked Database systematically links the available administrative health data within an Australian State of 1.7 million people. It brings together, initially, six core data elements (birth records, midwives' notifications, cancer registrations, in‐patient hospital morbidity, in‐patient and public out‐patient mental health services data and death records). It will be updated regularly and is designed, in future extensions, to include data on primary, residential and domiciliary care and health surveys. Linkage uses probabilistic matching of patient names and other …