SURVEY METHODOLOGY

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) 2016 Personal Safety Survey (PSS) was conducted from November 2016 to June 2017. The survey was conducted in all states and territories and across urban, rural and remote (excl. very remote) areas of Australia, and included approximately 21,250 people aged 18 years and over.

The survey collected information from men and women aged 18 years and over about the nature and extent of violence experienced since the age of 15. It also collected detailed information about men's and women's experience of:

• current and previous partner violence and emotional abuse since the age of 15
• stalking since the age of 15
• physical and sexual abuse before the age of 15
• witnessing violence between a parent and partner before the age of 15
• lifetime experience of sexual harassment
• general feelings of safety.

This was the third time the PSS has been conducted. The PSS was last run by the ABS in 2012, and prior to that in 2005. The PSS is based on the design of the Women's Safety Survey (cat. no. 4128.0) which was conducted in 1996, and has been adapted to include men's experience of violence.

The PSS survey is designed to produce female data to the state/territory geographic level, whereas male data is designed to support national level data. As a result, the sample size for the male population is around one third of that of the female population. This should be taken into consideration, particularly when producing data for males below the national level or for very low prevalence experiences. For more information, refer to the Methodology section of the Personal Safety Survey, Australia: User Guide, 2016 (cat. no. 4906.0.55.003).

Summary results from the 2016 Personal Safety Survey (PSS) are presented in the Personal Safety, Australia, 2016 (cat. no. 4906.0) publication. In addition, data tables can be accessed from the Downloads page of that publication. Data sourced from the 2016 PSS in these tables should be able to be replicated in the TableBuilder product. However, data from the Detailed Microdata may not match these tables as the data produced in the Detailed Microdata product is not perturbed. For more details, refer to the Perturbation of Data section of the TableBuilder Features used in PSS webpage and the Replicate weights technique section of the Using Weights and Producing RSEs and MOEs in Detailed Microdata webpage. Therefore it is recommended that users source their data from one microdata product when using it for analytical papers or products.

Detailed information about this survey is available in the Personal Safety Survey, Australia: User Guide, 2016 (cat. no. 4906.0.55.003) publication. That publication includes information on the scope, survey design, data collection methodology, weighting, benchmarking and estimation, as well as detailed explanations on the survey content and definitions, interpretation of the results, and data comparability with prior cycles. It is highly recommended that users refer to that publication when analysing and interpreting data.