Torrens University

Latest data for long-term health conditions, education (preschool, participation in secondary school, etc.),
housing (crowding, social housing, rental stress, etc.), families (children in jobless families, etc.) and the Australian Early Development Census and updates of hospitalisation and presentations at hospital emergency departments available here.

The emergency department (ED) plays a pivotal role in providing the public with access to acute health care and the provision of support to primary health care. There has been an increasing demand on these services with the major drivers being the age at which patients present, the patient’s clinical urgency and whether or not these patients are admitted to hospital. This fact sheet investigates these drivers in relation to ED presentations.

Victoria had the lowest rates of presentation to an emergency department for mental health-related conditions in 2020/21 in all age groups studied. The Northern Territory had the highest rates in all but the 12 to 17-year age group. More recent data for South Australia shows that rates in 2021/22 were lower (and the lowest over the past five years) at ages other than for those 65 years and over.

Data are now available for a selection of topics released by the ABS from the 2021 Census, including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Health Atlas and the Indigenous Status Comparison Social Health Atlas

Estimates are now available for larger Indigenous Areas, based on Indigenous Region estimates produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Justin Beilby, a health services researcher and general practitioner for over 30 years provides his insights on the
usefulness of PHIDU’s hot spot analysis of potentially preventable hospitalisations for health care decision making.

PHIDU has created a number of new training videos including:
How to: Find a suburb or locality,
How to: Produce a data profile of an area or group of areas,
How to: Aggregate data to larger areas for a percent, IRSD and age standardised rate/ratio, and re-base age standardised ratio/rate.

These data show the challenge remaining to increase vaccination coverage in young children and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to encourage those with English as a second language and other disadvantaged groups to have a booster (third) dose. Data are also provided for Total cases and Active cases for selected capital cities: these show a marked turn around in the population groups being infected. The atlases highlight geographic variations and provide comparisons with a range of demographic and socioeconomic status indicators.

This Fact sheet describes the age and socioeconomic background of people presenting to an Emergency Department for mental health-related conditions, drawing attention to differences in the extent to which these services are used by different population groups in the capital cities. More current data for South Australia shows the ongoing, and growing, impact to June 2021 on children and young people and the lower rate in the last year of presentations of people aged 65 years and over. Both of these trends point to concerns for the future health and wellbeing of the population.

This webinar video provides an introduction to the PHIDU website; and how to access and use the maps (single, double, and area profile), data, graphs, publications, population pyramids, and how to map your own data.

The number of deaths in general and by specific cause are indicators of a population’s health and safety. As a population health measure, areas with consistently higher death rates demonstrate areas of inequality and this phenomenon can be deeply entrenched over time. This project aims to highlight the geographic variation and temporal persistence of the rate of selected causes of death at the small area level across Australia.

The Older people in Australia: Social Health Atlas of Australia, presents data on a range of population characteristics, including demography, socioeconomic status, health status and risk factors, and use of health and welfare services. This is available by Population Health Areas (PHA), Local Government Areas (LGA), Primary Health Networks (PHN), Aged Care Planning Regions (ACPR), Remoteness Area and Quintiles of Socioeconomic Disadvantage of Area.

Being healthy in childhood and as young people provides an important foundation for later life. This Child and Youth Social Health Atlas of Australia draws together data from other Social Health Atlases and unpublished data for those aged from 0 to 24 years. As such, it seeks to set the data on health status, use of health services and health outcomes alongside the demographic, social and economic characteristics of this population group in the communities where they live across Australia.

The Indigenous Status Comparison: Social Health Atlas of Australia, presents selected topics and compares indicators between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Australia. This atlas is available by Indigenous Areas, including data for the Greater Capital City Statistical Areas/Rest of States/NT; and States/Territories.

The provision of timely and effective primary health care to Indigenous people is one option to manage a population whose health status is far below that of non-Indigenous Australians. For example, there is a high proportion of individuals with chronic conditions which require continuous management and who have higher rates of hospitalisations and lower rates of access to primary care services.

The level of Potentially Preventable Hospitalisations (PPHs) is an accepted measure of health system performance and, despite its limitations, can geographically highlight areas of concern where rates of hospitalisation are high or to investigate why in other instances rates are low. The aim of this study is to identify the geographic and temporal persistence of PPHs across Australia.