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arXiv · 2510.11101

Data Integration and spatio temporal statistics can quantify relative risk of medico-legal reforms: the example of police emergency mental health responses in Queensland (Australia)

Abstract

This study examined the spatial-temporal dynamics of Emergency Examination Order or Authority (EE-O/A) admissions in Far Northern Queensland (FNQ) from 2009 to 2020, using 13,035 unique police records aggregated across 83 postcodes. A two-stage modelling framework was used: Lasso was used to identify a parsimonious set of socio economic and health-service covariates, and a Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) model incorporated these predictors with structured spatial and temporal random effects. This research demonstrates that socio-economic disadvantage and service accessibility drive EE-O/A incidence, underscoring the need for targeted mental-health interventions and resource allocation in impoverished FNQ communities. Limitations include reliance on cross-sectional census data for covariates and potential ecological bias from data fusion.

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Nidup Dorji, Sourav Das, Richard Stone, Alan R. Clough. 2025-10-13. Data Integration and spatio temporal statistics can quantify relative risk of medico-legal reforms: the example of police emergency mental health responses in Queensland (Australia). https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11101

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