Aitken, Georgia
Murphy, Briony
Pilgrim, Jennifer
Bugeja, Lyndal
Ranson, David
Ibrahim, Joseph Elias
Funding for this research was provided by:
Department of Health and Human Services
Article History
Accepted: 26 November 2016
First Online: 16 January 2017
Compliance with ethical standards
:
: This work was supported by: Department of Health and Human Services, Aged Care Branch, Victoria, Australia; and the Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University. None of the funders influenced the design, methods, subject recruitment, data collections, analysis and preparation of paper.
: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors are affiliated and employed by the Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, which is also a funding source. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency or departments of the Australian Federal Government, the State Government of Victoria, Monash University, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine or the Coroners Court of Victoria. The authors have no other potential financial or personal interests that may constitute a source of bias.
: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The broader cohort study received ethics approval from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Research Advisory Committee (RAC 011/13). The Department of Justice Human Research Ethics Committee granted approval for access to the NCIS (CF/13/8187).
: This study utilizes existing medico-legal data of deceased subjects for the purpose of public health research, as such the requirement for informed consent has been waived by the approving Human Research Ethics Committee on the balance of harms and benefits to society.