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Data sources and definitions
Normal range: 18.5 to less than 25.0 Overweight: 25.0 to less than 30.0 Obese: 30.0 and greater Equivalised household income Equivalised household income is the total income at the household level adjusted using an equivalence scale to enable analysis of the relative incomes of households of different size and composition. This can be viewed as an indicator of the economic resources available to a standardised household. Age standardisation Age standardisation is a way of allowing comparisons between two or more populations with different age structures, in order to remove age as a factor when examining correlations between other variables. For example, the age distribution of people with diabetes is heavily skewed towards the higher age groups (that is, older people are more likely to have diabetes than younger people). When looking at the labour force status of people with and without diabetes, it can be seen that more people with diabetes are not in the labour force, however, this could be due to the fact that there are more older people with diabetes and less older people in the work force. Age standardising removes age from the picture so it can be seen whether there is a correlation between diabetes and labour force status independent of age. This is achieved by applying a single population structure to each of the populations being compared. In this article, the Australian 2001 estimated resident population is used as the reference population. 1 WHO (World Health Organisation) 2000. Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic. Report of a WHO consultation. Technical report series 894. Geneva: WHO <back 2 ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) 1998. How Australians measure up. ABS Cat. No. 4359.0. Canberra ABS <back
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