Introduction
The health of Queenslanders: Report of the Chief Health Officer Queensland (CHO report) was released for the first time in 2006. Past versions are available from the Queensland Government’s Publications Portal website. The CHO report analyses and compiles information from a wide variety of data sources.
This page provides the broad data types used in selecting the most relevant data source, as well as access to data source technical information and information on data security and confidentiality. It itemises each data source used in the current report; sources for previous reports is available from the relevant report in the Publication Portal.
Data types
The Chief Health Officer report uses a wide range of data sources to assess the health status of Queenslanders. Information collected for health monitoring typically include information from individuals, from health care providers or facilities, and environmental monitoring. Examples commonly used in this report are:
- Surveys—structured data collection from the entire population (for example, the Census) or a subset (for example, a sample of the general population or people with certain health conditions).
- Notifications—when reporting for a condition is required by law, regulation or other types of agreements. This can also include required notifications for environmental exposures or contaminants.
- Registries—track events or persons over time and may be event-based (for example birth and death certificates) or disease-specific (for example, cancer or rheumatic heart disease registry).
- Administrative records—health records primarily collected for another purpose (for example, health service billing or individual patient care) but may also be useful in wider public health monitoring.
Each type of data source has strengths and limitations, and these will be affected by underlying data collection protocols and other factors specific to each source. The most appropriate source will vary based on considerations such as the health condition, the completeness of the data (coverage), and how results will be interpreted and generalised.
Data principles
It is not uncommon for similar health information to be available from multiple sources and for results to vary somewhat between sources. As health information becomes increasingly available across multiple platforms, this is becoming increasingly more common. For most data sources, this does not mean that a data source is right or wrong—it is a function of the underlying purpose of the data and the resulting collection, compilation, manipulations and analytical frameworks applied.
This report has used the following principles to assist with interpreting data and results.
- Data are sourced from the primary data custodian when possible. See the data custodian list from the When to make a Public Health Act application page on the Queensland Health website.
- To ensure confidentiality, de-identified data and/or aggregate data generated for public health reporting are preferred and are predominantly used in this report. Data suppression rules as defined by the data custodian are applied when there are small numbers of cases of interest.
- Secondary data sources are used when the secondary source has augmented data with additional calculations, data cleaning or data manipulations that provide more information than the primary source.
- Where possible, alignment with key health monitoring systems was preferred (for example, the Report on Government Services and Closing the Gap).
- To report by priority data dis-aggregations (for example, Hospital and Health Services or remoteness areas) multiple data sources may be used.
- The data source is clearly identified in text, figures and tables.
Additional results
This report typically provides a subset of information available from the primary data source. Access to these additional results may be provided
- as a hyperlink on the dashboard/figure
- in the Reference section as a hyperlink for the relevant item
- as a hyperlink in the report data sources table.
Table 1: Chief Health Officer report data sources