Technical notes

General notes:

  1. Data are subject to minor revisions over time.
  2. Components of figures may not sum to totals due to rounding.

Client demographics:

  1. Client numbers and proportions are calculated based on closed treatment episodes with a valid statistical linkage key (SLK) 581.
  2. No imputation was applied to client data in 2017–18.
  3. Rates are crude rates based on the Australian estimated resident population as at 31 December of the reference year.

Drugs of concern:

  1. Unlike the principal drug of concern, additional/other drug/s of concern is not necessarily the subject of any treatment within the episode.
  2. The proportion of episodes for an additional drug of concern is calculated by the number of closed treatment episodes for that particular additional drug (up to 5 drug types can be reported) divided by the total number of closed treatment episodes for clients receiving treatment for their own drug use in the collection year.

Treatment:

  1. The proportion of episodes for an additional treatment type are calculated by the number of closed treatment episodes for that particular additional treatment type (up to 4 treatment additional types can be reported) divided by the total number of closed treatment episodes in the collection year.
  2. Rehabilitation, withdrawal management (detoxification), and pharmacotherapy are not available for clients who received treatment for another’s alcohol or other drug use.

Agencies:

  1. An agency’s remoteness area is derived by applying an ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Remoteness Structure 2011 to Statistical Area Level 2 code (SA2) correspondence. Some SA2s are split between multiple remoteness areas. Where this is the case, the data are weighted according to the proportion of the population of the SA2 in each remoteness area. As a result, it is possible that the number of agencies in a particular remoteness area is not a whole number. After rounding, this can result in there being ‘<0.5’ or ‘<0.5%’ of agencies in a remoteness area due to the agency’s SA2 partially crossing into the remoteness area.
  2. The number of agencies by remoteness or sector may not sum to the total number of agencies due to rounding.
  3. The number of agencies is not an accurate reflection of all in-scope AOD specialist treatment services in Australia, as some agencies can fail to report data during a collection for various reasons. See the Alcohol and other drug treatment services NMDS 2017–18 data quality statement for further details.