Summary
For more than a decade, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has played a leading role in national indicator development, monitoring and reporting in the area of health and wellbeing of Australia's young people, and to date has produced numerous reports in this area (AIHW 2000b, 2003b, 2007c, 2008g).
The key national indicators presented in this technical paper were produced by the AIHW in consultation with the National Youth Information Advisory Group. The development of these key national indictors builds upon the extensive work undertaken over the last decade by earlier expert advisory groups, taking into account recent Australian and international research and emerging key policy issues and concerns for young people.
The indicators presented in this technical paper, and which subsequently will be included in the Young Australians: their health and wellbeing 2011 report, are based on a conceptual framework that is a modification of the National Health Performance Framework (NHPF), with minor modifications to better capture health and wellbeing issues relevant to young people. The National Youth Information Framework consists of three tiers: Health status, Determinants of health and Health system performance, and includes a number of dimensions within each tier.
The National Youth Information Framework provides a comprehensive set of indicators across a range of dimensions that will help monitor the health and wellbeing of young Australians. This technical paper describes the technical definitions of the 71 indicators that will be reported on in Young Australians: their health and wellbeing 2011, along with brief justifications explaining the relevance and importance of the indicators to young people's health and wellbeing, indicator and data limitations, and primary data sources.
This technical paper identifies the best currently available primary data sources for the key national indicators as identified by the AIHW, in conjunction with the National Youth Information Advisory Group. It provides comments on data gaps and limitations, particularly inconsistencies between indicator (ideal) definitions and existing data definitions. These specifications are guiding the analysis of data for the key national indicators in Young Australians: their health and wellbeing 2011, planned for release in 2011. This technical paper is subject to revision as new issues arise in relation to new data sources or changes to existing data sources.
The key national indicators in this technical paper overlap with the Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) performance indicators. Of the 71 key national indicators, nearly one-quarter are the same or similar to COAG performance indicators in the National Agreements, in the areas of health care, disability, education, affordable housing, and Indigenous reform.