This indicator reports on the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with type 2 diabetes who had a blood pressure test in the previous 6 months and are regular clients attending Indigenous specific primary health care services. The goal for this indicator is 70% by 2023.
Why is it important?
Chronic conditions, including diabetes, are the leading causes of illness, disability and death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Effective management and monitoring of diabetes, including regular blood pressure tests, can delay the progression of disease, improve quality of life and increase life expectancy.
What data are available?
In the absence of national data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with type 2 diabetes who have regular blood pressure tests, this indicator uses data from the Indigenous primary health care national Key Performance Indicators (nKPIs) data collection. These data pertain to Indigenous regular clients. A regular client is defined as a client who has attended the primary health care organisation at least 3 times in the last 2 years.
Impact of COVID-19 on reporting
In acknowledgement of the additional pressures on organisations because of COVID-19, reporting to the nKPI collection was temporarily changed from mandatory to voluntary in June 2020 and December 2020. This resulted in a decrease in the number of organisations that reported on Indigenous regular clients with type 2 diabetes who had a blood pressure result recorded at the primary health care organisation within the previous 6 months from 211 in December 2019, to 194 in June 2020 and 194 in December 2020.
In addition, lockdown restrictions due to COVID-19 may also have impacted:
- The rates of delivery of clinical services
- The ability of clients to attend the services
- The way in which services were delivered (for example, greater use of telehealth).
What do the data show?
Progress towards the goal is not able to be assessed.
- In December 2020, the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with type 2 diabetes who had a blood pressure test in the previous 6 months and are regular clients attending Indigenous specific primary health care services was 63% which was below the trajectory point of 69% required to meet the goal.
- From June 2017, the rates were consistently below the trajectory required to meet the goal in 2023.
Nationally, in December 2020, among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander regular clients with type 2 diabetes:
- 63% had their blood pressure result recorded within the previous 6 months, which is below the trajectory point (69%) required to meet the goal for 2023.
- The proportion who had their blood pressure result recorded was lowest in Victoria/Tasmania (56%) and highest in Queensland and Western Australia (both 66%).
Figure 17.4 shows the proportion of services by the percentage of regular clients with type 2 diabetes who had their blood pressure test results recorded. For example, in December 2020, 30% of services had 68.5% or more of regular clients with type 2 diabetes who had their blood pressure test result recorded within the previous 6 months.
Figure 17.1: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander regular clients with type 2 diabetes who had a blood pressure test result recorded in the previous 6 months
