The Utility of Data Collected as Part of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework

Boyd Potts, Christopher M. Doran () and Stephen Begg
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Boyd Potts: Cluster for Resilience and Wellbeing, Appleton and Manna Institutes, Central Queensland University, Brisbane, QLD 4701, Australia
Christopher M. Doran: Cluster for Resilience and Wellbeing, Appleton and Manna Institutes, Central Queensland University, Brisbane, QLD 4701, Australia
Stephen Begg: Violet Vines Marshman Centre for Rural Health Research, La Trobe University, Bendigo, VIC 3550, Australia

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 3, 1-11

Abstract: Since 2006, the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework (HPF) reports have provided information about Indigenous Australians’ health outcomes. The HPF was designed, in consultation with Indigenous stakeholder groups, to promote accountability and inform policy and research. This paper explores bridging the HPF as a theoretical construct and the publicly available data provided against its measures. A whole-of-framework, whole-of-system monitoring perspective was taken to summarise 289 eligible indicators at the state/territory level, organised by the HPF’s tier and group hierarchy. Data accompanying the 2017 and 2020 reports were used to compute improvement over time. Unit change and confidence indicators were developed to create an abstract but interpretable improvement score suitable for aggregation and visualisation at scale. The result is an exploratory methodology that summarises changes over time. An example dashboard visualisation is presented. The use of secondary data inevitably invites acknowledgments of what analysis cannot say, owing to methods of collection, sampling bias, or unobserved variables and the standard mantra regarding correlation not being causation (though no attempt has been made here to infer relationships between indicators, groups, or tiers). The analysis presented questions the utility of the HPF to inform healthcare reform.

Keywords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; health performance; data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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