Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers

This is an important national survey that collects information about the health of people in Australia. This includes information about long term health conditions, experiences of disability, the needs of an ageing population, and the provision of care for others.

Your participation in this survey is an opportunity to make a real difference. The Survey of Disability Ageing and Carers collects important information about the health and caring arrangements within Australian households. Most Australians will live to experience retirement and old age, and at some point, in their lifetime will care for a family member or friend who is frail, aged, or with a disability. Furthermore, each person’s experience of ageing, disability and caring is different, as is their need for support. This is why your contribution to this survey is so valuable.

By taking part, you can ensure that your experiences and circumstances become part of the story of life in Australia today. Decisions about services provided to Australians who are carers, experience health conditions or disability, or who are aged 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.

Results are used by governments, researchers and community groups to better understand how to plan and provide services for people with long term health conditions or disability, understand the needs of an ageing population and plan the balance between providing formal care and supporting informal care arrangements. The information you provide will contribute to important decisions being made for your local area and the wider Australian community.

Each year, we collect data about all aspects of life from thousands of households throughout Australia in order to better understand our population and future needs.

Rather than survey the whole population, we use a scientific sampling process designed to collect data which builds a picture that includes people from all areas of Australia. All households have a chance of being selected.

Once a household has been selected, another household cannot be substituted in its place, as changing the random selection could mean some parts of the community are under or over represented.

It is important that all selected households complete the survey in order to make sure the results represent the whole community. This means that decisions made about services provided by government, local councils and community groups are made using the most accurate information.

A representative from your household will be asked to answer general questions about the people in your household, such as their age, cultural background, employment and education. The household representative will also be asked a series of questions about the health and caring arrangements of people in your household. Then, if anyone in your household has a long-term health condition, is aged over 65, or provides care to someone in these groups, we will ask them some follow-up questions.

A parent (or guardian) will be asked to complete any interviews on behalf of their children aged younger than 15 years, and to provide consent for children aged 15 to 17 years to complete the interview themselves. Parents will be able to complete the interview on the child’s behalf if consent is not given.

We ask that all households selected complete the survey online.

If you are unable to respond online, please call us on 1800 655 107 to discuss your participation in the survey.

To respond online please follow the instructions in the letter that we sent you. This includes step-by-step instructions for you to create your ABS Survey Account and start your survey online.

If you are having trouble accessing your form, completing the survey, or have lost your Form Access Code, please call us on 1800 655 107 and an ABS officer will be happy to assist you.

If we don’t hear from you before the due date (shown on the letter we sent), an Interviewer may make contact with your household to complete the survey.

For information about the ABS response to COVID-19, and how the ABS is safely collecting data during this time click here.

We will ask you a range of questions about the support and assistance needed by people in your household. Your answers will provide information about important topics like:

• Use of health and other support services
• Care provided to others
• Participation in the community
• Public and community transport use
• Employment and education.

The SDAC data is not directly provided to the Royal Commissions. However, confidentialised, aggregated data from previous surveys have been an important source of information for both the Royal Commission into the Violence, Neglect, Abuse and Exploitation of People with Disability and the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

The questions included in this survey are being asked under the authority of the Census and Statistics Act 1905. The ABS seeks voluntary participation in the survey, however the Act does have provisions to make your response compulsory.

The ABS has a strong reputation for retaining confidentiality of data. All the information you provide will remain strictly confidential and is protected under the Act. Our Privacy Policy outlines how you can access and correct the personal details that you provide to us and our privacy complaints handling process.

If your household has been selected to participate in this survey, you will have received a letter informing you about your selection. You can also call us on 1800 655 107 to confirm your selection.

For any personal visits, our staff will always identify themselves, show you their official ABS photo identification and clearly explain the information they are seeking and how this will be used.

You may receive calls from numbers that you are not familiar with including mobile phones or “unknown” numbers. This is because many of our Interviewers are teleworkers and use ABS authorised mobile phones and office phones to conduct interviews over the phone.

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 655 107 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.

Where possible, we can arrange for an ABS Interviewer who is fluent in the language of the householder to conduct the survey. If there is someone in the household who can translate, and the respondent agrees, they can help the Interviewer.

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 $26,640 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, contained within our Privacy Policy, on how to lodge a complaint about privacy matters.

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 www.abs.gov.au/dataintegration.

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.

If you are unable to register online, please call us on 1800 655 107 to speak with someone who can assist you.

For help or more information about this survey, please call us on 1800 655 107 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.