Dementia Australia and the Sax Institute have partnered for the first time to develop the Dementia Research Platform tool, bringing together 20 years of data from the 45 and Up Study.
The platform will provide researchers funded through the Dementia Australia Research Foundation with direct access to a uniquely rich dataset for investigating dementia risk, progression and outcomes at population scale.
The Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study is the Southern Hemisphere's largest longitudinal study of ageing, involving more than 250,000 participants. It includes access to linked data from Medicare, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, hospitals and many other datasets. All data are provided within the Secure Unified Research Environment (SURE), ensuring a highly secure, privacy‑protective setting for analysis.
Dementia Australia CEO Professor Tanya Buchanan said the partnership would allow researchers to track dementia risk factors, trajectories and service use across the life course.
"The Dementia Research Platform will allow researchers to explore questions such as how dementia outcomes differ across populations or identifying patterns of healthcare and aged care use before and after a dementia diagnosis," Professor Buchanan said.
"With an estimated 446,500 Australians living with dementia, and this figure expected to increase to more than one million by 2065 without significant invention, it is more important than ever to have access to comprehensive data sets."
Sax Institute CEO Dr Martin McNamara said the platform represented a nationally unique resource for dementia research.
"It offers researchers funded through the Dementia Australia Research Foundation an unprecedented opportunity to generate robust evidence on dementia risk factors and outcomes using one of Australia's richest longitudinal health datasets, and to contribute directly to research that informs policy, supports advocacy efforts and improves care for people affected by dementia," Dr McNamara said.
Applications for the Dementia Australia Research Foundation's 2026 grant round recently opened, and include an opportunity to build the 45 and Up dataset into project proposals.
