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Health in Hunter New England
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Background
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Introduction
The Health in Hunter New England (HHNE) report is a broad, strategic overview of population health status and factors that influence health of residents and communities in the Hunter New England. It is not a comprehensive survey of all aspects of community health and wellbeing, but rather it provides a snapshot of priority health areas and health trends within the Area.
Efforts to improve population health in Australia
The focus and aims of the HHNE have been influenced by a variety of health advancement strategies, already in place across New South Wales and Australia. Healthy People 2005 is a current five year strategic plan for NSW Health aiming to redirect and orient health services across New South Wales to achieving maximum health gain of the state's population. The Commonwealth National Health Performance Framework Report also identifies a variety of target areas for priority health service direction. The National Public Health Partnership is an overarching Public Health body in Australia that guides direction and delivery of Public Health services. Similarly the EnHealth Council overseas strategic directions in environmental health, coordinating environmental health activities across Australia. Various specific initiatives are in place that aim to address health inequalities and target those at risk of poor health. Examples of these programmes include Healthy Cities, the Health Inequalities Research Collaboration, and the Families First programme.
Potential uses of the report
Potential uses of the Report include:
1. Comparing health and wellbeing of Hunter New England residents with those of other Areas and State
2. Monitoring changes in health and wellbeing of the whole Hunter New England population
3. Identifying and quantifying heath inequalities within the Hunter New England
4. Informing debate on priorities for health planning, health service delivery and health research and development
5. Monitoring the impact of health and other interventions that have an influence on population health status.
Indicator selection
Indicators in the HHNE have been selected based on a number of criteria, in order that the indicators should be:
1. Easy to understand by broad audiences
2. Shown to be associated with health outcomes
3. Have a broad coverage of determinants of health and wellbeing
4. Measured regularly to allow annual updating and show trends over time.
5. Consistent with indicators collected by the broader NSW Health system.
6. Highlight important social determinants of health and wellbeing.
7. Feasible to access.
Sources and methods
The report summarises data from NSW Health's population health datamart, called the Health Outcomes Information and Statistical Toolkit (HOIST). HOIST provides a set of standardised datasets for monitoring population health including ABS Census data, hospital admissions, emergency department visits, births and deaths, NSW Health Surveys, plus communicable disease and cancer registrations. Most of the information in this report was produced using HOIST.
Evidence based planning
Ensuring that the planning and development of health services (and other services that impact on health) is based on evidence is the first step in ensuring that services are appropriate, meaningful and most effective in improving the health of the population. This report aims to provide a range of health data on which to base such health services and interventions.
Content of the report
This report supersedes the New England AHS Mortality Report 1981-2000 (2004), the Hunter Epidemiological Profile (1995) and the State of the Health in the Hunter (2003). It provides an overview of the health of Hunter New England residents, 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 users, including public health practitioners, planners, policy analysts, researchers, students and health consumers. This edition of the report contains information on approximately 160 population health indicators. The latest available data are presented wherever possible and view to be updated as new data is released.
This 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: Hunter New England population, Social determinants of health, The environment, and Health related behaviours. The Social determinants of health chapter provides some data on factors underpinning health status in the population. The chapter on the environment updates indicators of air and water quality and includes data on mosquito-borne infections. The Health related behaviours chapter presents data from the 2001 NSW Child Health Survey.
Section Two, Burden of disease - presents information about the major causes of disease burden currently experienced by Hunter residents.
Section Three, Health inequalities - examines differentials in health among population groups. Chapters examine inequalities among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in rural and urban areas, overseas-born people, trends in the burden or mortality by socioeconomic groups.
Section Four, Health priority areas - presents recent information on key health issues including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer, injury and poisoning, mental health, oral health, communicable diseases respiratory disease, pregnancy and the newborn period and child health.
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 on how to interpret charts, are given in the Methods chapter.
Web (HTML) version
The Web (HTML) version of this report includes downloadable versions 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. This Web report will also be updated periodically so that it reflects the most recently available data.
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Print version:
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Although this page can be printed directly from your Web browser,
a higher quality version of this entire page (graph, table and text)
is available as an Acrobat PDF file which can be printed or viewed on screen
using Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software).
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Downloadable files:
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The data contained in the table on this page are available for download as a CSV file which can be
imported into many software packages. The graph is available for download as an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file
and as an EMF (Enhanced Metafile Format) file. Files in these formats can be imported into most word processing,
presentation and graphics software packages.
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Rider:
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The information presented in this report result from analyses of a variety of social and health focused datasets. These datasets originate from a variety of sources including Hunter New England Health, the NSW Department of Health, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The timing of the release of these data to third parties is controlled by the owner of these data. It is therefore possible for these organisations to publish data that they have not yet made available to Hunter New England Population Health for analysis and release. Users should therefore check the publications of these organisations as it is possible that they may have published even more up to date information on Hunter New England than those available in this report. As this report is an ongoing project, the indicators presented will be updated as soon as possible after the release of all datasets to Hunter New England Population Health.
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Copyright notice:
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This work is copyright Hunter New England Area Health Service, 2005. It may be reproduced
in whole or in part, subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgement of the source. Commercial usage or sale is prohibited.
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Suggested citation:
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Hunter New England Population Health. Health in Hunter New England. Hunter New England Area Health Service, 2005. Available at:
http://www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/HHNE/toc/pre_background.htm. Accessed (insert date of access).
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Produced by:
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Hunter New England Population Health,
Hunter New England Health, with assistance from:
Centre for Epidemiology and Research,
NSW Health.
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Last updated:
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5 December 2005
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See NSW Data:
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To view state data, see NSW Chief Health Officer's Report:
internet version,
intranet version
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