Geographical variation in health service use by people living with dementia

The number of times a person uses a health service is influenced by many factors, including patient health needs, the available supply of services and potential barriers such as cost.

Figure 5.3 is an interactive chart where the average number of services per person was calculated for:

• people in the dementia study cohort who used the service at least once (referred to in the figures as “service users”)
• all people in the dementia study cohort, regardless of whether they used the service (referred to in the figures as “cohort”).

Figure 5.3: Average number of services per person, by place of residence, state/territory of residence and sex, 2019

Notes

1. The dementia study cohort refers to 158,730 people aged 30 and over who were living in Australia in 2019 and had a dementia record in the NIHSI.
2. The geographies in this report are based on where a person lived, not where they received services. Data are only presented for states/territories with hospital data in the NIHSI.
3. “Mean (Service users)” is the mean number of attendances per person for people in the dementia cohort who used the service at least once in 2019.
4. “Mean (cohort)” is the mean number of attendances per person for all people in the dementia cohort, regardless of whether they used the service in 2019.
5. Only public hospital data were included in this analysis: some of the observed variation may be due to the availability and use of private hospitals.
6. The bar is blank if a value could not be published due to data quality or confidentiality concerns.

 Data tables: Average number of services per person, by place of residence, state/territory of residence and sex