AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF HEALTH AND WELFARE (AIHW)
NAME OF COLLECTION
The National Cancer Statistics Clearing House (NCSCH)
OVERVIEW
The National Cancer Statistics Clearing House (NCSCH) is a database maintained by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). It is an amalgamation of data collected by the eight state and territory cancer registries and its purposes are to facilitate the production of national cancer statistics and to assist various interested parties in their research.
SCOPE
The NCSCH contains every primary cancer, except basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin, that has occurred in Australian residents since 1982. Due to the nature of cancer data, the most recent data held at any time are approximately three years behind 'real-time'.
DATA DETAIL
Although the NCSCH contains the data item 'Country of Birth' there are data quality issues around this data item in some states and territories. Therefore national data are not available to the public but state/territory level data may be sought from individual state and territory cancer registries. Other data items collected relate to persons (e.g. name, sex and date of birth) and to tumours (e.g. site of cancer, type of cancer and date of diagnosis).
GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
All state and territory registries collect postcode at date of diagnosis and some also collect the Statistical Local Area.
AVAILABILITY OF DATA AND PUBLICATIONS
The main publications are an annual "Cancer in Australia" report and a 5-yearly survival analysis. Extensive summary statistics are available on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website. More specialised statistics are often provided to researchers for a fee. No identifiable or potentially identifiable data are released to clients unless their request has been approved by all eight state and territory cancer registry ethics committees as well as the AIHW’s ethics committee.
CONTACT DETAILS
John Harding
Head, Health Registers and Cancer Monitoring Unit
Health and Functioning Group
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
GPO Box 570
Canberra ACT 2601
Ph: (02) 6244 1140
Email: cancer@aihw.gov.au
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