Chapter 5: Our communications

This chapter provides an overview of public affairs activities, including the provision to policy makers and the public of messages arising from the AIHW's data on health and welfare.

The chapter focuses on the AIHW's strategic direction 'Improve the availability of information for the community and our stakeholders' through:

• continuing to ensure information is conveyed in formats to meet the requirements of different audiences, and for different purposes
• assisting the media to understand and report AIHW information in an accurate and timely manner.

Improving the availability of information

The AIHW communicates its information and data to the public, and its stakeholders and clients, in a variety of ways. The AIHW's website and methods of online communication are becoming increasingly important.

The AIHW is committed to making its work widely accessible and easy to understand, consistent with its strategic direction (SD5) 'Getting the messages out better'. All publications are available free in full text on the AIHW website. Hard copies are also available.

Delivering publications in new ways

The AIHW releases all publications in Portable Document Format (PDF) and Rich Text Format (RTF). The latter is tailored for people with vision impairment who use special screen-reader technology to read text on websites. All AIHW report summaries are also published in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is accessible to screen readers.

As part of the AIHW's commitment to improving information for the community and its stakeholders, it produced Australia's health 2010: in brief, an attractive, consumer-friendly 60-page version of its biennial report to the nation, Australia's health 2010. Produced at the end of 2009–10 and distributed during 2010–11, the 'in brief' document provides highlights from the main report in a highly graphical format, and 'shows the story' that they tell about health, and health spending and services, in Australia. These were distributed in free class sets to secondary schools that bought copies of the main 600-page report. This initiative was backed up by education worksheets on the education pages of the AIHW website, together with an online slide presentation and interactive downloadable online quizzes based on the booklet.

The feedback received from teachers, academics and government agencies has been highly positive. Demand for the booklet has been so strong that it was reprinted late in the year, just one year into a two-year shelf life.

The AIHW also produced the following publications in new community-friendly formats during 2010–11:

• Cancer in Australia: in brief 2010 (released December 2010). This 27-page booklet features key messages from the 215-page main report Cancer in Australia: an overview 2010, with a focus on incidence, mortality and survival statistics. It presents this information in a reader-friendly format with highly illustrative graphs, diagrams and tables (see the 'snapshot').
• Australia's hospitals 2009–10 at a glance (released April 2011). This 35-page publication provides key information from Australian hospital statistics 2009–10, written in a less technical style and published in a consumer-friendly format that combines key statistics with highly illustrative graphs and background information (see the 'snapshot').

Feedback on the effectiveness of products

The AIHW continued to evaluate the effectiveness of its publications through short online reader surveys. Feedback was very favourable, with 93% of respondents considering the AIHW's publications to be 'quite clearly written' or 'very clearly written', 89% finding them 'quite useful' or 'very useful', and 72% saying they found the level of detail 'about right'.

Feedback was also sought on the effectiveness of the MyHospitals website via an external evaluation report. Data for this review were sourced from the website and call centre statistics, a scan of social media conversations referring to the site, and an online survey of internet users in Australia to measure awareness and usage. The review found that while MyHospitals is yet to develop a sustained high public profile, those who have visited the site were largely satisfied with the experience, and credibility was high.

The AIHW also engaged Health Policy Analysis in 2010–11 to undertake consultations with key stakeholders to review the Australian hospital statistics suite of products. Overall, the products were found to be extremely valuable, highly accessed and well respected. Several recommendations were put forward to further enhance their value to users and these will be taken into account in producing next year's suite of outputs (see the 'snapshot').

Strengthening communication

'Getting the messages out better', for the community and our stakeholders, was a key strategic direction for the AIHW during the year. Enhancing the writing abilities of AIHW staff is essential to achieving this objective.

AIHW staff are offered a number of writing and communications courses and seminars designed to further develop their ability to express complex statistical ideas in concise, clear, reader-friendly language. In 2010–11, 54 AIHW staff attended the 'Writing Skills' course, 26 attended 'Statistical Writing Skills', 6 attended 'Web Writing Skills', 46 attended grammar workshops and 9 undertook courses to help enhance their presentation skills.

A Writing for the Web Guide has been produced for use in conjunction with 'Writing for the web' training courses to enhance the quality of internet and intranet content.

In conjunction with the AIHW branding guide, work has begun on a new Web Style Guide to ensure branding consistency across the AIHW website.

Development of customer care charter

During 2010–11, a new customer care charter was agreed upon by the AIHW Board (see the 'snapshot' below).

Notification services for clients and stakeholders

The AIHW offers various email notification services through its website for anyone wishing to receive notices of the release of AIHW publications. Subscriptions to these notices have increased significantly in 2010–11 to over 12,000. The most significant increase in notice subscriptions has been for AIHW Access, the AIHW's long-established magazine, which was made available in a new online format for the first time in 2009–10 (Table 13). There was also continued strong growth in members of the public seeking education resources (see 'Education resources') and employment information.

New publications

Publication releases

In 2010–11, the AIHW released 135 publications, accompanied by 71 media releases, as well as many other forms of information and statistics, such as posters, fact sheets, web-optimised 'snapshots' and online datasets. This was a 15% increase on the 119 publications produced in 2009–10 (see Figure 1). The overall publishing trend in recent years has been steadily upwards.

Publication sales

The AIHW's flagship health publication—Australia's health 2010 and the accompanying summary publication—Australia's health 2010: in brief—were the best-selling publications for 2010–11. Australian hospital statistics 2009–10 was also very popular in sales terms, although being released only nine weeks before the end of 2010–11.

To enhance the sales of its flagship publications, the AIHW developed pre-release marketing campaigns to target specific government and non-government organisations as well as the education sector, resulting in increases in overall sales.

Figure 9: Visits to the AIHW website, 2001–02 to 2010–11

The AIHW's website

The AIHW's major communication medium is its website. The site received nearly 1.4 million visits in 2010–11, a 5.5% increase on visits in 2009–10 (over 1.3 million) (Figure 9).

Visits to popular publications

Table 14 lists the most popular publications downloaded from the Institute's website during 2010–11. Australia's health 2010 was the leading publication downloaded. For those publications released during the financial year, the ranking may not be based on full-year figures, that is, the figures relate to the period between the publication's release date until 30 June in the year in question.

*Released during the financial year on the date shown.

Website and intranet redevelopment

In 2010-11, www.aihw.gov.au was relaunched with all-new branding, content, design and graphics, made possible following the purchase of a new Content Management System (CMS). The CMS has reduced duplicate input, thereby improving efficiency and consistency of information across the site. New features—such as collaborative authoring—will be implemented throughout the coming year.

Work is underway to update the AIHW intranet, using new technology, based on feedback and input from AIHW staff.

Online products

During the year the AIHW developed some new product types and continued support to existing ones.

• Data snapshots on asthma and male health are new AIHW product types providing information in a more accessible way by offering interesting facts and data in a summary format (see the 'snapshot'). More are planned for 2011–12, covering subjects such as diabetes, prisoner health, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and health risk factors.
• The MyHospitals website, launched on 10 December 2010, received about 275,300 visits in its first 6 months (see the 'snapshot').
• The AIHW Indigenous Observatory, launched on 5 May 2011, is a new repository of information featuring key reports on Indigenous health and welfare issues—with its central product being the report The health and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People: an overview 2011—information updates, and links to other important websites (see the 'snapshot').
• Building on last year's success, the Closing the Gap Clearinghouse website project, undertaken by the AIHW for FaHCSIA in collaboration with the AIFS, has continued to expand, with the addition of nine publications, including resource sheets, issues papers and annual papers. The Clearinghouse website attracted more than 56,000 visits between 30 June 2010 and 1 July 2011 (see the 'snapshot').

Education resources

The AIHW continued to develop the education resource area of its website by adding a set of worksheets featuring highlights from Australia's welfare 2009 and Australia's health 2010. Worksheets were also developed for specific subjects in response to requests from teachers.

Subscriber numbers to the automatic email notification education service rose by 83% over the year (see Table 13), largely due to new links established with the Home Economics Victoria (HEV) Teaching Association, the AIHW's ongoing relationship with the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER), and word-of-mouth recommendations by teachers.

Building on these relationships, the AIHW was asked to present a plenary session to 1,500 Year 12 students at the Victorian Certificate of Education Health and Human Development Student Day Out in August 2010; provide an education package for the Victorian teachers of Health and Human Development professional development day in February 2011; and present a session at the International ACHPER conference in Adelaide in April 2011.

Following on from these presentations, the AIHW has been asked to present at future Victorian Education and state level ACHPER conferences.

The targeted education marketing campaign undertaken from June to December 2010 has shown positive results, with 5,000 copies of the Australia's health 2010: in brief booklet distributed to schools, TAFEs and universities around Australia.

The AIHW encourages feedback and suggestions from users about its education resources through its exclusive education email contact point at email .

In 2010–11, the AIHW received about 250 emails from schools, TAFEs and universities requesting copies of reports, information, and/or providing worksheet suggestions through its education email channel. It also received more than 200 individual student enquiries through its generic email email channel.

Media relations

Overall media coverage

The AIHW issued 71 media releases in 2010–11, up from 56 releases in 2009–10 (Table 15). This largely reflects the increase in the number of published reports for the year, as well as more announcements and launches, such as the MyHospitals website and Indigenous Observatory launches.

Generally media coverage of the AIHW's products is neutral or positive.

Overall media coverage rose slightly in 2010–11, increasing across all mediums compared with 2009–10, except for radio and television. This may be due to the increasing shift towards online news, with a 22% increase in online news coverage since 2009–10.

Media coverage for individual reports and events

AIHW reports and events receiving the most media coverage during the year are listed in Table 16.

The launch of the MyHospitals website attracted the most media coverage for the AIHW in 2010–11, accounting for more than 10% of all media coverage throughout the year (see the 'snapshot').

The report Trends in serious injury due to land transport accidents, Australia was the most successful individual AIHW report in terms of media coverage. This report went 'viral' online due largely to a news story with the theme 'middle-aged men at most risk on two wheels' and received more than 150 online mentions.

Australian hospital statistics 2009–10 (see the 'snapshot') and Cancer in Australia 2010 (see the 'snapshot') were the next most successful reports and received greater coverage in the more traditional media (print, radio and television) than the report Trends in serious injury due to land transport accidents, Australia.

Review of media embargo policy

During 2010-2011, the AIHW sought an external review of its media embargo policies and practices.

*Released during the financial year on the date shown.

The existing policies had been in place for many years, and the review was conducted with the objective of ensuring their continued relevance and effectiveness.

Following extensive consultation with various external stakeholders (including Ministers' offices and members of the press), the AIHW Board approved the decision to retain current media embargo policy, including the default 1am release time and the media embargo period of 48 hours. The policy has been slightly amended to allow the embargo period to be reduced to 24 hours in individual cases.

The Board has also approved retaining the existing sanctions for journalists who break an embargo (6 months denial of prior access to AIHW reports and media releases).

Updates to media spokesperson policy

In order to ensure the consistency and quality of its public 'face', the AIHW has adopted new policies for the selection of media spokespeople.

For flagship publications—as well as selected others—the Director is the key spokesperson, with Group Heads (or Unit Heads, with Director's approval) handling major—but not flagship—reports. The Head of the Governance and Communications Group or Head of the Communications, Media and Marketing Unit will be the spokespersons for other publications. Where appropriate, the Director may delegate these duties to other subject experts.

Exhibiting at conferences

Each year, the AIHW exhibits at a range of conferences. Professional conferences provide important marketing opportunities for the Institute to promote its publications, website and other services to a wider audience.

In 2010–11, staff organised promotional booths and related activities at the:

• NatStats 2010 National Statistical Conference
• 40th Public Health Association of Australia Annual Conference
• National Forum on Safety and Quality in Health Care
• 43rd National Conference of the Australian Association of Gerontology
• Australian Population Association 15th Biennial Conference
• 14th National Rural Health Conference
• Conference of the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation
• National Disability Conference

Parliamentary relations

Hansard references

The AIHW is considered as a reliable information source by members of parliament. The AIHW was cited 30 times during 2010–11 in the Hansards of both Houses of the Australian Parliament. (Table 17).

Budget estimates hearings

During the year, the Director appeared before the Senate Community Affairs Committee Additional, Budget and Supplementary Estimates hearings for the Health and Ageing portfolio. Responses were supplied to 25 questions on notice arising from these hearings.

Inquiries

The AIHW provided several submissions to parliamentary or government inquiries during the year, as follows: