QUALITY DECLARATION - SUMMARY
INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT
For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.
RELEVANCE
National Health Surveys (NHS) have been run at varying intervals since 1989-90. The NHS is currently being conducted as a regular triennial survey. The aims of the survey are to obtain national benchmark information on a range of health issues, enable trends in health to be monitored over time and provide information on health indicators for national health priority areas and for important subgroups of the population.
Household Expenditure Surveys (HES) have been run at varying intervals since 1974-75, and is currently being conducted on a six-yearly basis. In 2003-04, the survey collected detailed information about the expenditure, income, assets, liabilities and household characteristics of households resident in private dwellings throughout Australia.
Access to health services is seen as an important part of improving the health of Australians. Financial constraints can impact on the services used by various population groups, with a consequent impact on the health status of the population. The role of private health insurance and government health cards are considerations when examining the household expenditure on health services.
Both the NHS and HES provide data which allow analysis of the health expenditure of Australian households living in private dwellings.
TIMELINESS
Data for the 2004-05 National Health Survey was collected from August 2004 to June 2005. The first data was released in February 2006 in '2004-05 National Health Survey: Summary of Results, Australia' (cat. no. 4364.0) and 'National Health Survey: Summary of Results, State Tables' (cat. no. 4362.0). Detailed data was released in both Basic and Expanded Confidentialised Unit Record Files in May 2006.
Data for the 2003-04 Household Expenditure Survey was collected from July 2003 to June 2004. The first data was released in August 2005, with '2003-04 Household Expenditure Survey, Summary of Results, Australia, Reissue' (cat. no. 6530.0) published in February 2006. Detailed data was released in both Basic and Expanded Confidentialised Unit Record Files in June 2006.
ACCURACY
Estimates from the NHS and HES are subject to two types of error - sampling error and non-sampling error. Information on data quality and interpretation are published in 'National Health Survey: Users' Guide 2004-05' (cat. no. 4363.0.55.001), which is published for each NHS conducted, and the '2003-04 Household Expenditure Survey and Survey of Income and Housing Australia: User Guide' (cat. no. 6503.0).
COHERENCE
The comparability of both NHS and HES data over time differs between topics and between surveys. General pointers to comparability are published in the Users' Guides released following each survey.
INTERPRETABILITY
The '2004-05 National Health Survey: Summary of Results, Australia' (cat. no. 4364.0) and '2003-04 Household Expenditure Survey, Summary of Results, Australia, Reissue' (cat. no. 6530.0) publications contain detailed Explanatory Notes designed to provide information to users on data sources, terminology and estimation methods used in producing these statistics. More detailed information is provided in the '2004-05 National Health Survey: Users' Guide' (cat. no. 4363.0.55.001) and the '2003-04 Household Expenditure Survey and Survey of Income and Housing Australia: User Guide' (cat. no. 6503.0).
ACCESSIBILITY
Please see the Related Information tab for the list of products that are available from the National Health Survey and the Household Expenditure Survey.
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