Social Health Atlas of Australia: Topic-specific Atlases
View Causes of premature and potentially avoidable death; identifying hotspots of inequality: 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. The availability of a long-term archive of death records and the consistent recording of the residential location within these files has meant that the degree of geographic and temporal variation in the causes of death can now be examined at the small area level across Australia.
View Child and Youth Social Health Atlas of Australia: Data
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 This Child and Youth Social Health Atlas of Australia draws together data from other Social Health Atlases and unpublished data for those aged from 0 to 24 years.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.
View Closing the Gap Time Series Atlas: Data
Closing the Gap seeks to improve the lives of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. This Time Series Atlas focuses on the Closing the Gap targets (targets as at February 2018) for the Aboriginal population, with comparisons with the non-Indigenous population, at the Indigenous Areas and Indigenous Regions level.
View COVID-19 impact on unemployment benefits Atlas (October 2020): supplemented with Emergency Department (ED) presentations for mental health-related conditions: Data
One of the greatest impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Australia has been on jobs – in fact, the loss of jobs, as businesses have scaled down or closed. A major indicator of the impact of loss of jobs is the increase in the number of people receiving an unemployment benefit. In June 2019 there were just over three quarters of a million people receiving an unemployment benefit; by June 2020 this figure had more than doubled, to over one and a half million (the numbers are 769,555 and 1,614,412, respectively).
The associations at the suburb level between unemployment payments and socioeconomic disadvantage in capital cities are very strong, as shown in the chart below. However, correlations between ED presentations for mental health-related conditions and socioeconomic disadvantage are weaker, ranging from moderate to strong, indicating the more widespread nature of these conditions in the population. There are similar associations for other age groups.
View Housing Atlas: Data
Adequate and affordable housing is an important determinant of health. This report explores the housing circumstances of different population groups, drawing on small area geographic data from the 2016 Census of Population and Housing, health surveys, income support payment datasets, and administrative health datasets (e.g., perinatal statistics, potentially preventable hospitalisations, mortality) to examine area-level associations between the housing circumstances of different population groups and housing circumstances and health outcomes.
View Social Health Atlas of Older people in Australia: Data
The Social Health Atlas of Older People in Australia (version 2), 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.
View Potentially Preventable Hospitalisations Atlas: Data
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. It follows on from work by Duckett and Griffiths (2016) published as “Perils of Place: identifying hotspots of health inequalities”. This study provides a framework to identify the existence of areas with persistently high PPH rates over time known as “PPH hotspots” and provides core principles to highlight areas where interventions can be targeted. This new analysis, and its presentation in geographical maps, heat map graphs and data sheets, will provide information that is useful to the various levels of the health system, from state and territory health agencies to local and regional health networks and boards, PHNs and primary care practitioners, in working together with an aim to reducing the level of PPHs through improved primary health care outcomes at the local area level.
View Regional Centres Atlas: Data
The Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) has developed the concept of Regional Centres, as an ‘important but often overlooked set of areas with particular policy and population dynamics.’ These 46 areas have a total population of between 10,000 and 250,000 with at least 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander usual residents. Using the Indigenous Atlas produced by PHIDU, this atlas expands on the demographic, mobility and socioeconomic measures used in CAEPR's original paper to further include indicators under the following themes, ‘Demographic and social indicators’, Health status, disease prevention, disability and deaths, and ‘ Use and provision of health and welfare services’.
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Social Health Atlas of Australia: Population Health Areas
PHA data (xlsx)
The Population Health Area (PHA) data include totals for the Greater Capital City Statistical Areas/Rest of States/NT; States/Territories; Australia; and for the Statistical Areas Level 3 and Level 4.