4363.0 - National Health Survey: Users' Guide, 2017-18  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 30/04/2019   
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Scope

The 2017-18 NHS collected information by face-to-face interview from usual residents of private dwellings in urban and rural areas in all states and territories of Australia, covering about 97% of the people living in Australia. Persons in scope of the survey were those identified by an adult within each sampled private dwelling as a usual resident of that dwelling. Private dwellings are houses, flats, home units, caravans, garages, tents and other structures being used as a place of residence at the time of the survey. The NHS was conducted from a sample of 16,376 private dwellings across Australia.

Overseas visitors staying, or intending to stay, in Australia for 12 months or more were in scope.

The following were excluded from the survey:

    • Very Remote areas of Australia and discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
    • Non-private dwellings such as hotels and motels, hostels, boarding schools and boarding houses, hospitals, nursing and convalescent homes, prisons, reformatories and single quarters of military establishments and short-stay caravan parks (around 3% of the population). This may affect estimates of the number of people with some long-term health conditions (for example, conditions which may require periods of hospitalisation).
    • Members of non-Australian defence forces stationed in Australia and their dependants
    • Non-Australian diplomats, non-Australian diplomatic staff and non-Australian members of their households, customarily excluded from the Census and estimated resident population
    • Overseas visitors (i.e. People whose usual place of residence is outside Australia and who are in Australia for less than a 12 month period)
    • Visitors who are not usual residents of the selected private dwelling
    • Households where all Usual Residents are less than 18 years of age.

These exclusions are unlikely to affect national estimates, and will have only a minor effect on aggregate estimates for individual states and territories, except for the Northern Territory where the population living in Very Remote areas and discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities accounts for around 20.3% of persons.