New partnership broadens access to AIHW data

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has now become the primary contributor of statistical information to the National Data Network (NDN), providing 43 of the 58 data sets now available on the Internet library.

The Institute has long made its information available on its own web site, but now that information is also available through the NDN.

AIHW Director Dr Richard Madden congratulated the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in leading the development of the NDN and said the partnership provides another way for policy makers, researchers and the community to access Institute statistics and other information.

'The AIHW website currently has over 2000 visits per day, and we believe that through this partnership that number will increase, and more people will become aware of the quality and breadth of data that AIHW offers,' Dr Madden said.

Head of the AIHW's Business and Information Management Division, Dr Anny Stuer said an important point about the partnership with NDN is that it provides a model for sharing best practice with the community of information developers and users.

'A valuable aspect of the NDN is that it allows partners to share best practice principles, particularly in such critical areas as privacy protocols, and information standards.

'Through the NDN, users can also access METeOR, AIHW's Metadata Online Registry, which contains the all-important definitions that underlie our statistics.

'These definitions help ensure the statistics collected are of the highest quality and can be meaningfully compared across different data collections,' Dr Stuer said.

AIHW information currently available through the NDN includes medical labour force, cancer, homelessness and supported accommodation, mortality, disability, health and welfare expenditure, drug use and treatment services, mental health information, and many other topics.

 

Previous article Next article