Health and Wellbeing Follow Up Survey

The Health and Wellbeing Follow Up Survey is an important survey that collects information from people who have previously completed the National Survey of Health and Wellbeing. The Follow Up Survey collects information about the health and wellbeing of people in Australia and how they use health services and programs. Your responses to the Follow Up Survey will be combined with your previous responses to the National Survey of Health and Wellbeing to create a picture of how Australians’ health and wellbeing and use of services looks over time.

In 2021-2022 you completed the National Survey of Health and Wellbeing during which you provided your contact details and indicated your willingness to complete a follow up survey.

Your participation in this survey is an opportunity to make a real difference. Results are used by governments, researchers and community groups to better understand the health and wellbeing of Australians and the health services Australians use and need.

By taking part in the Follow Up Survey, you can ensure that your experiences and circumstances become part of the story of life in Australia today. Decisions about general and mental health services and programs can be made by analysing data from this survey. The information you provide will help to shape policies and services which improve the lives of all Australians.

If you have been asked to complete this survey you will receive a letter in the mail that contains step by step instructions on how to complete your survey online.

If you are having trouble completing your survey online or have lost your Form Access Code, please call us on 1800 281 656 and an ABS officer will be happy to assist you. You can also call 1800 281 656 to complete the Follow Up Survey over the phone.

You will be asked questions about your health and wellbeing such as:

• The impact of health conditions on your activities;
• Feelings or experiences relating to health and wellbeing; and
• Use of health services.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) aims to collect the information in this survey with your cooperation. While you do not have to complete this survey, your participation will assist the ABS to produce reliable indicators of the health and wellbeing of people in Australia.

The questions included in this survey are being asked under the authority of the Census and Statistics Act 1905. The ABS is required by the Act to maintain the secrecy of all information provided to it. No information will be released in a way that would enable you to be identified.

If you have been asked to participate in this survey, you will have received a letter informing you about your participation. You can also call us on 1800 281 656 to confirm your selection.

The ABS will NEVER ask you to provide or confirm your bank details or tax file number (TFN).

If you're concerned that a phone call, SMS, voicemail or email claiming to be from the ABS is not genuine, don’t reply to it. Instead, call us on 1800 281 656 and we will verify your selection in the survey and the identity of the Interviewer who is contacting you. 

No. There is no provision within the Census and Statistics Act 1905 to reimburse people for providing statistical information. In line with other national statistical organisations throughout the world, individuals, businesses and other organisations are asked to supply information for statistical purposes without compensation. It is only with the support of people like you that we can continue to produce the statistics that inform Australia's important decisions.

We take the security of the information you provide to us very seriously. Your information remains strictly confidential to the ABS and is not shared with other agencies. We use the information you provide to calculate statistics, which are released in ways that do not allow for the identification of individuals or households.

All ABS employees have signed a legally enforceable Undertaking of Fidelity and Security in which they agree to keep any information, including personal information which they may deal with in the course of their work, private and confidential. This agreement applies to ABS employees for the rest of their lives, even if they leave the ABS. The penalty for breaching this is two years jail, a $37,560 fine, or both.

We comply with the Australian Privacy Principles. The ABS will not disclose your personal information to any overseas entity or for compliance or regulatory uses. If you believe we have breached these principles, please see the information on how to lodge a complaint about privacy matters, contained within our Privacy Policy.

The information you provide will be combined with the information from other respondents to produce vital statistics about Australian households.

The ABS is committed to maximising the value of data and statistics. One way to do this is to combine data from two or more sources together. This is known as data integration. The ABS does this to create new statistics and insights that help address important questions about Australia’s communities, economy and environment, and to save you time when responding to surveys.

The new insights created through data integration assist policy makers and researchers to better understand Australian families, communities, industry and the economy. This wider understanding can help to improve the development and delivery of government services and programs in areas such as health, infrastructure, housing and other community services.

By reusing existing data, we can also reduce the amount or frequency of information needed from our surveys, saving you time, and using public money more effectively.

You can learn more about ABS data integration by visiting our Data Integration page. 

Please see our Survey Account Help page for assistance with technical difficulties, as well as answers to frequently asked questions on creating and using an ABS Survey Account.

For help or more information about this survey, please call us on 1800 281 656 during business hours. For help outside these hours, please leave a message with your contact details and we will return your call as soon as possible.

We acknowledge and value your time and effort participating in this survey. It is only with the support of people like you that we can continue to produce the statistics that inform Australia's important decisions.