NHMRC Partnership Projects · Application 2057961
Health Outcomes and Post-incarceration Evaluation
Australia's first large-scale causal study of how incarceration affects health. HOPE links justice and health records across 410,000+ cases to answer a question that correlational studies cannot: what does prison itself do to people's health, and what would have happened under a community sentence instead?
The problem
Without causal evidence, it is impossible to know whether custody worsens health outcomes relative to community-based alternatives, and by how much. Large investments in correctional healthcare, diversion, and reintegration programs risk being poorly targeted or only partially effective.
HOPE is designed to fill that gap — not with another descriptive study, but with the strongest causal design currently feasible at this scale in Australia.
The approach
The core insight is simple: matters are quasi-randomly allocated to magistrates who differ in their tendency to impose custody. By comparing otherwise similar people who faced stricter or more lenient decision-makers, HOPE can estimate the effect of incarceration itself — not just the health profile of people who happen to go to prison.
Data
NSW Reoffending Database · Justice Health clinical records · ABS Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA). Conducted in secure public-sector environments.
Design
Judge-leniency instrumental variable. Compares custodial and non-custodial outcomes more credibly than standard observational studies.
Scale
410,000+ linked cases · 5-year project · ~$1.36M total · Expandable to Queensland through a separate data linkage pathway.
Health outcomes include hospital and ED use, mental health service use, pharmaceutical use, chronic disease management, mortality, and post-release trajectories. The project gives particular attention to outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with disability, and other groups facing concentrated risk.
Partner value
HOPE is structured as a partner-facing evidence platform, not a one-way academic exercise. Partners shape questions, receive tailored outputs, and gain access to analysis directly relevant to their policy and operational decisions.
Who we are seeking
HOPE is seeking formal partners — government agencies, peak bodies, and community organisations — who can contribute data access, in-kind expertise, or cash contributions (up to $500,000 per partner). Tailored briefs are available for each of the following.
Justice & Corrections
NSW Department of Communities and Justice · Corrective Services NSW · Queensland Corrective Services. HOPE can extend to shared-clients analysis linking custody data to child protection, housing, and disability outcomes.
Health & Clinical
NSW Health · Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network · Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Focused on continuity of care, avoidable harm, and mental health and AOD demand across the custody–community transition.
Sentencing & Policy
Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council · Attorney-General's Department. HOPE adds downstream evidence on health and reintegration consequences to sentencing reform conversations and justice reinvestment agendas.
Community & Aboriginal-Controlled
Community Restorative Centre · Rainbow Lodge · ATSILS · other throughcare and reintegration organisations. Community partners shape research questions, support co-design, and help ensure findings are accountable to affected communities.
Data & Research Infrastructure
BOCSAR · CHeReL · ABS/PLIDA. These partners provide the linkage spine, analytical infrastructure, and justice-system measurement that make the project possible at scale.
Not sure where you fit?
Get in touch and we will send the brief most relevant to your organisation's mandate and priorities. Partnerships can be tailored around data access, policy input, community engagement, or evaluation framing.
Research team
HOPE brings together expertise in quasi-experimental methods, justice-health data, sentencing research, forensic mental health, health economics, addiction epidemiology, Indigenous health, and translational public health. Chief Investigator spots for the current round are being held for incoming partners.
Carleen Thompson
Griffith University
Justice-health data
Don Weatherburn
UNSW · Former Director, BOCSAR
Sentencing data, ROD development, judge-leniency methods
Stuart Kinner
Curtin University · University of Melbourne
Justice health, offender wellbeing, linked data systems
Benjamin Spivak
Swinburne University of Technology
Forensic mental health and justice-health data
Rachel Sutherland
UNSW
Drug trends, harm reduction, translational public health
Steven Larkin
University of Adelaide
Indigenous health, justice, culturally informed research
Rachael Morton
University of Sydney
Health economics and cost–benefit analysis
Rui Wang
University of Sydney
Health equity and economic evaluation
Jenny Williams
University of Melbourne
Econometrics and health policy
Teagan Weatherall
University of Adelaide
Aboriginal health and community research
Robert Breunig
Australian National University
Public policy economics
John Paget
Former Inspector of Custodial Services
Custodial systems expertise
Participating institutions: Griffith University · University of Sydney · UNSW · Swinburne University · University of Adelaide. Earlier iterations also involved senior collaborators from Corrective Services NSW, Legal Aid NSW, and Justice Health.
We are currently in active outreach for the next NHMRC Partnership Projects round. If HOPE is relevant to your organisation's priorities, we would welcome an initial conversation.