Report of the New South Wales Chief Health Officer	Table of contents On this page: Print version
	About this report

This report is the sixth in a series that began in 1996. This is also, therefore, the tenth anniversary of reports of The health of the people of New South Wales. The report provides an overview of the health of the people of NSW, presents trends in key health indicators, demonstrates health inequalities, and highlights emerging health priorities and new health data sources. It is intended for a wide variety of user s, including public health practitioners, planners, policy analysts, researchers, students and health consumers.

This edition of the report contains information on almost 300 population health indicators, which are available in the online (Web) version of the 2006 report. About half of these indicators are presented in the printed 2006 version. Most of the indicat ors have been updated from the 2004 Report, but there is also a lot of new information, including analysis by various geographical subdivisions, such as Divisions of General Practice and small area analyses, projections to 2015 for hospitalisations and dea ths, and enhancements to the Aboriginal Health and other chapters.

The latest available data are presented, including hospitalisation data for 2004-05, death data for 2004, NSW Health Survey and NSW School Student Health Behaviours Survey data for 2005, communicable diseases data for 2005, and emergency department data for 2006. The 2006 report uses the Australian standard population based on the 2001 Census for calculating age-standardised rates for comparing trends over time. Indicators analysed by the health area boundaries in NSW follow the boundaries which came into effect on 1 January 2005. Geographical areas were grouped according to Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Remoteness categories on the basis of Accessibility/Remoteness Index for Australia (ARIA+ version) score. Socioeconomic Indices for Areas (SEIFA) based on the 2001 Census have been used in the report.

Content

The report has four sections: Determinants of health, Burden of disease, Health inequalities and Health priority areas.

Each of the four sections of the report is divided into several chapters.

Section One, Determinants of health: includes chapters on the NSW population, social determinants of health, the environment, and health-related behaviours. The social determinants of health chapter provides updated data on income, social welfare benefits, crime rates and socioeconomic scores by the new health area boundaries in NSW. The chapter on the environment updates indicators of air and water quality and includes data on sources of drinking water used in urban and rural areas, unflued gas and wood heaters, and healthy living practices in Aboriginal communities in NSW. The health-related behaviours chapter presents updates on the key health risk factors of smoking, sun protection, physical activity, obesity and overweight, nutrition and alcohol consumption and includes information sexual health behaviours and illicit drug use.

Section Two, Burden of disease: presents information about the major causes of disease burden currently in NSW, life expectancy, death rates, causes of death and causes of hospitalisation and international comparisons of life expectancy, infant mortality, self-rated health status, and ambulatory care sensitive conditions. Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions, and dementia are also included there.

Section Three, Health inequalities: examines differentials in health among population groups. Chapters examine inequalities among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including the health of Aboriginal people in custody, overseas-born people, NSW trends in the burden or mortality by socioeconomic groups and inequalities in rural and remote populations associated with the degree of remoteness from major service centres, using the ARIA+ index.

Section Four, Health priority areas: presents recent information on key health issues including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer, respiratory disease, injury and poisoning, mental health, ora l health, pregnancy and the newborn period, and communicable diseases. There are numerous new indicators, especially in the first two chapters and a more concise presentation of information throughout this section.

Sources and methods

This report uses data from a wide variety of sources. Most data sets were accessed and analysed via the Health Outcomes Information Statistical Toolkit (HOIST) datamart. Descriptions of the data sets, details of the analytic methods used, and guidance o n how to interpret charts, are given in the Methods chapter.

Web version

The web (HTML) version of this report includes downloadable version of the charts and data tables. These are provided to facilitate re-use of the information contained in the report. You are encouraged to use these downloadable files in other documents or presentations, provided that no changes to the data are made and that the source is acknowledged. Please note that commercial use or resale of these downloadable files or any other information contained in this report is prohibited. The Web version of the report will also be updated regularly so that it reflects the most recently available data.

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