A DVA research project examining the long-term wellbeing of ex-serving members and their families, is being expanded to include current serving ADF members who are also DVA clients.
Established in 2022, the Longitudinal Wellbeing Project links DVA data with the ABS Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA). The linked data is de-identified before analysis and used to build a stronger evidence base on the health needs and wellbeing outcomes of veterans, including the impact of services delivered by DVA.
The inclusion of serving members will help DVA build a more complete picture of wellbeing over the veteran lifecycle, including as they transition from the ADF to civilian life and beyond. This work is crucial to improving support, health care and long-term outcomes.
Why this research is important
Evidence-based research is key to strengthening existing DVA policies, programs, and services to better support the wellbeing of veterans and families of veterans. The Longitudinal Wellbeing Project directly responds to recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, which highlighted the need for stronger data to better understand veteran experiences across their lives.
DVA recognises that personal life experiences, social and other health and wellbeing determinants may contribute to an individual’s quality of life, including areas such as income, finance, employment, education, skills, housing, social support, connection, spirituality and meaning, and recognition and respect.
Gaining a deeper understanding of wellbeing needs will allow DVA to deliver benefits to both DVA clients and the wider veteran community, including:
- context specific responses at critical life stages to maximise recovery from illness, injury, and harm
- more effective support for a successful transition into civilian life
- Defence and ex-service organisation better equipped to support current and ex-serving members
- opportunities to improve the services of health and welfare providers, including mental health services.
Your privacy is our priority
Any DVA information that is transferred to the ABS is stored in secure environments and ABS applies strict access controls.
Names, addresses and other personal details that could be used to identify someone are removed before any analysis takes place.
The data is used for research and policy development only. It does not affect individual entitlements, payments, claims or services, and no decisions about personal circumstances are made using this data.
All findings are checked to ensure individuals cannot be recognised in any published outcomes.
You can choose to opt out
DVA clients can choose to opt-out of having their information transferred to the ABS to be part of the Longitudinal Wellbeing Project by emailing privacy.enquiries@dva.gov.au.
Requests to be excluded from the initial data transfer must be received by 31 July 2026. Subsequent requests will be actioned on an annual basis as DVA will provide annual updates of data to the ABS. Once transferred and linked, it is not possible to exclude a person from the analytical data set as it is a de-identified data set.
Veterans who have opted out previously from public research will be automatically removed from the data transfer unless DVA is otherwise instructed by the individual veteran.
For more information, visit the Longitudinal wellbeing of veterans and families on the DVA website.