This website brings together information from numerous sources to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date view of the state of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health outcomes, the broader determinants of health and health system performance in one area. It is designed to inform policy, service planning, program development and research.
Beginning in 2006, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework (HPF) reports have been released every 2-3 years. In the seventh edition (released in 2020) the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework website was created to allow for more ongoing and timely updates to the measures as data become available. The website includes data analysis drawn from over 60 data collections, findings from research and evaluations, and analysis of implications of the evidence for government, health services and the research sector.
There are updates for many of the administrative and survey data collections. The population denominators for most of the statistics used throughout this report is the 2016 Census-based population estimates and projections that were made available in 2019. Consequently, statistics published in this website that rely on these estimates and projections are not comparable with previously published statistics.
In addition to migrating all content to the HPF website, the measures include enhanced sections on research and evaluations. These provide insights into aspects of health and service delivery that are not easily captured in the administrative data collections, but can demonstrate characteristics of communities and services that are working well or need improvement.
Over the coming years, feature articles will be published on this website to draw out insights from the data and research, exploring particular topics across the HPF measures.
The content for this website has been provided by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA). Attribution for content is provided in the Structure of the HPF website section and the Publications section below.
Structure of the HPF website
This Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework website contains a range of products including reporting on each of 68 measures, a national summary report, State and Territory key health indicator reports, interactive data visualisations and supplementary data tables.
Report overview
In addition to information about this website, there is:
- Summary report (content provided by AIHW): A comprehensive national summary report provides an overview of the key statistics and summarises the latest information on how First Nations people are faring, drawing from the HPF performance measures
- Policies and strategies: (content provided by NIAA) This section provides context for national and jurisdictional policies and strategies. Sections include:
Explore measures
The HPF consists of 68 measures across three domains (tiers):
- Tier 1 – Health status and outcomes measures the prevalence of health conditions including disease or injury, human function, life expectancy and wellbeing, and deaths.
- Tier 2 – Determinants of health measures the determinants of health including socioeconomic factors, environmental factors and health behaviours.
- Tier 3 – Health system performance aims to measure the health system’s performance towards meeting the health needs of First Nations people. It measures health system effectiveness, responsiveness, accessibility, continuity, capability and sustainability.
Each measure consists of:
- Key facts/messages: (content provided by AIHW): Key data facts and research findings relevant to the measure
- Why is it important? (content provided by NIAA and AIHW) This section includes explanation of the key issues that the measure addresses and their impact on First Nations people. The section may refer to specific objectives in national policy and practice and may also discuss limitations of the indicators included in the measure.
- Findings
- What does the data tell us? (content provided by AIHW) This includes a summary of key findings from the national data collected for the measure, including relationships with other measures where relevant (e.g. social determinants).
- What do research and evaluations tell us? (content provided by NIAA and AIHW) This includes a summary of key local and international research and evaluations. The section refers to relationships with other measures where relevant (e.g. social determinants).
- Implications: (content provided by NIAA) This section highlights implications of the evidence for government, health services and the research sector.
- References: for research described in the measures
- Related measures: a list of measures that are related to the current measure
- Data
- Data visualisation: (content provided by AIHW) each measure has interactive charts that the user can adjust by various topics and disaggregations.
- Data tables and resources: (content provided by AIHW) The data supporting the measures are provided in downloadable MS Excel tables with comprehensive notes on sources and statistical methods used.
- Data sources: data sources used in the measures and information about data sets updates
Publications
Publications include current and past national summary reports and summary reports for each jurisdiction. The publications section shows the latest reports by default, but there are filters to help find any previous editions, if required.
Feature articles
Over the coming years, feature articles will be published to draw out insights from the data and research, exploring particular topics across the HPF measures.
The aim of these articles is to look at linkages across the three domains for a particular topic of interest with the objective of providing fresh policy-relevant insights.
The first feature article is: Key factors contributing to low birthweight among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies. This report examines birthweight among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies, with a focus on identifying factors contributing to low birthweight.
State and Territory key health indicator reports
Key findings for each State and Territory are available to download as in briefs (content provided by AIHW). The availability of state reports by year of publication is shown in the table below.
Availability of publications for states and territories, by year of publication
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2010 |
2012 |
2014 |
2017 |
2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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NSW |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
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Vic |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
– |
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Qld |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
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WA |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
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SA |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
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Tas |
– |
– |
– |
– |
✔ |
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ACT |
– |
✔ |
– |
✔ |
✔ |
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NT |
✔ |
– |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
View all publications.
Resources
- Data and resources
- Access data: downloadable data tables
- Technical appendix
Suggested citation
Website:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare & National Indigenous Australians Agency [insert year of latest update]. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed [insert date].
Webpage:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare & National Indigenous Australians Agency [insert year of latest update of webpage]. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework: [insert title of webpage, e.g Measure 2.01 Housing]. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed [insert date].
Tables:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [insert year of latest update]. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework. Data tables: Measure 2.11 Contact with the criminal justice system. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed [insert date].
Acknowledgements
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the National Indigenous Australians Agency worked collaboratively to prepare content for the website, in particular the Health Performance Framework Unit (AIHW) and the Analysis, Data and Policy Transformation Section (NIAA).
The HPF reporting process is overseen by a Steering Committee made up of First Nations representatives and other stakeholders. These include:
- a First Nations person as Chair
- the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation
- the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
- the National Indigenous Australians Agency
- the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care
- representatives from two or three State/Territory Governments
- two or three non government representatives with data expertise relating to First Nations peoples.
We acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia, and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures, and the elders past, present and emerging. We would like to thank Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for their assistance in the collection of data, without which this report would not have been possible.
We would also like to thank all of the individuals, communities, government agencies and organisations that provided valuable input to the website development and updates:
- National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Standing Committee
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, in particular the Centre of Excellence for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Statistics, the Health and Vitals Statistics Section, the Demography Section, the Health Section, the Household Characteristics and Social Reporting Section and the Customised and Microdata Delivery Section for preparation of customised tables, data checking and technical support
- individuals with expertise in particular topics from various organisations who reviewed draft material
- all government agencies of the Commonwealth and the States and Territories that provided input into the report
- Gilimbaa for providing artwork and graphic design.
Artwork story
The original description of the artwork is as follows:
The artwork for the Department of Health and Ageing ‘The Culture of Healing’ brings together many people from Government to community all across Australia to address the theme of health and wellbeing for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The ‘Health Plan’ is a whole of government approach, the aim of which is to initiate genuine discussion, solutions and community driven outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within the area of health.
The foundation of the artwork is set in a grid pattern. Each area consists of different cultural markings and motifs from the Torres Straits and across mainland Australia. These markings are the tracks left by the Rainbow Serpent, the Creation Spirit, and they represent the diversity of country. The lines that make up the grid formation are the navigational pathways and meeting places. Three stars represent these navigational pathways for Government and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The plant and animal motifs represent traditional health and wellbeing – ‘bush tucker’.
The central figures represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait ancestors who teach us the traditional ways so we can keep our culture strong today and into the future. The circular motif towards the bottom of the artwork represents Government and communities coming together in discussion, working together to create better health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The inner circle represents the Government from the Minister, to staff and other stakeholders and moving outwards to the Communities. The ‘U’ shaped motifs represent people seated in discussion, or a ‘Yarning Circle’.
The pathways that lead out from these people represent the expertise and cultural knowledge and understanding that each individual brings to the table of their family, their community and their people and how the ‘Health Plan’ can best benefit them for a happier, healthier and brighter future together.