Improving Australia’s welfare data

Data and insights drawn from high-quality and comprehensive data play a critical role in strengthening the evidence base for informed decision-making, including for delivering services to people who need them. They can help us to understand how we are faring as a nation, across a wide range of areas important to our society.

Data development activities can help fill information gaps by creating new data collections or expanding existing data sets to be more comprehensive, and by improving the quality of data to ensure they are valuable and meaningful.

This page provides an overview of data development and examples of data improvement work currently being undertaken by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) in the welfare data landscape. It also identifies some of the key areas where improvement is still needed.

Welfare data in Australia

The welfare data landscape is rich and constantly evolving. A wealth of information is collected and used about people’s factors influencing wellbeing (such as socioeconomic conditions and community networks) and people’s welfare service use (such as employment services and income support). These 3 broad elements are reflected in the conceptual framework for Australia’s welfare, see Understanding welfare and wellbeing.

Welfare data may be generated through administrative data collections (such as records of people using government funded aged care services) and surveys and population censuses, for example. These data can be used in many ways, for many purposes. Data can meet an immediate need (such as being collected to inform care and service provision) or address a longer-term need (such as being analysed to understand patterns, trends and outcomes over time to support policy responses). High-quality information and data can show the need and demand for welfare services, and how people engage with and navigate various services. They can be used to generate insights into differences across population groups and be used to inform policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. Information and data also help identify possible areas for service improvement.

Welfare-related data development activities

Across the Australian data landscape, data development activities are undertaken by many organisations and have been taking place over many years. It can be a slow and resource intensive process, but there is great value in turning data into useful information.

The goal of development activities is for information and data to be more accessible, timely, purposeful, consistent, accurate and reliable. Development activities can focus on improving data from the point of collection (for example, expanding the range of available data or improving data quality by using standardised concepts and definitions) through to improving the ways insights are drawn (for example, linking established individual datasets to gain more comprehensive insights than are possible by looking at data sets in isolation). Data may not be automatically meaningful – high-quality analysis and skilful drawing of insights and communication of results are often needed to make data useful.

The following case studies showcase how the AIHW is currently leading data development activities in the welfare data space. Case study 1 explores recent work to expand the available data about family and domestic violence (FDV). This data development work is a good example of building the evidence base to improve understanding of the demand for services available to people experiencing FDV, and any gaps, and to inform decision-making for the benefit of people experiencing FDV. It is also about recommending how best to bring together data from fragmented technological systems used by practitioners and service providers at point of service. Case study 2 highlights a project to examine health and specialist service use prior to death using a new linked data set. It is included as an example of how linking health and welfare data helps to overcome information gaps in nation-wide evidence joining up related systems, and demonstrates how linked data can be used to gain better insights into vulnerable groups who typically experience poorer health and wellbeing outcomes.

Case study 1 – Expanding national data to better understand family and domestic violence

Data to report on and understand family, domestic and sexual violence (FDSV) are collated from a range of sources to provide a national picture of the extent, nature and impact of FDSV. Currently, the AIHW’s reporting on FDSV is drawn from several sources including surveys that can identify whether people have experienced certain behaviours or harms, and administrative data that collects information on experience of violence or can identify violence based on particular types of service use (for example, information about assault injuries in hospitals data). Qualitative data are also used to enhance the understanding of key issues and can provide valuable lived experience expertise.

While there have been substantial improvements in FDSV-related data and reporting over the past decade (see Family, domestic and sexual violence summary), several national gaps remain. One main gap is limited data on the range of health, welfare and other support services people who experience FDSV may access – including pathways through, and impacts of, these services.

The AIHW, with funding from the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS), is developing a prototype (pilot) data collection on government-funded specialist crisis FDV services provided to victim-survivors.

The current lack of national data on specialist crisis FDV services leads to limited understanding of demand and unmet demand for services, and outcomes experienced by the victim-survivors. The lack of data limits understanding at the individual, service, and system level to support service policy, planning, management and investment, and population-level research and reporting.

There is a strong national commitment to improve national data on FDV services. The pilot data collection will develop recommendations for a new national specialist crisis FDV service data collection. The project has the support of the Women and Women’s Safety Ministerial Council and the Data and Digital Ministers. It addresses several core national policy priority areas, including:

• creating nationally consistent data on use of specialist crisis FDV services, with harmonised definitions
• developing methodology for the measurement of, and improving understanding of, demand and unmet demand for services
• increasing data on victim-survivors of FDV that is linkable to other sources to provide insights into long-term outcomes for victim-survivors.

To date the project has:

• consulted with funding bodies, service providers, peak bodies, advocacy groups, and people with lived experience
• documented the complex and varied funding, service delivery and data collection models across jurisdictions
• agreed a core set of data items to be included in the pilot collection
• developed a flexible data collection model to maximise participation in pilot testing and minimise burden on participating services.

The core set of data items agreed for the pilot collection cover:

• client characteristics and outcomes
• information about the violence, the perpetrator and service provision.

Development of common definitions and understanding, particularly around type of violence, level of risk and specific FDV service responses, will support the collection of nationally consistent service data that better reflects a client’s experience of FDV and their service interactions.

At least 10 different client management systems are used by the FDV services in scope of the pilot collection. Understanding how services capture, process and use the data in these systems is a critical component of the project. Importantly, around 60% of in-scope services also provide homelessness services and provide data to the AIHW’s Specialist Homelessness Services Collection. This means there is an existing framework which can be leveraged and built on for a national collection, if established. For other in-scope services, experience working with data standards and national data governance processes will vary, and recommendations for a national collection need to take these different operating contexts into account.

The pilot data collection is a foundational piece of work towards developing a national data collection, which could be expanded and applied to additional specialist family, domestic and sexual violence services over time, such as sexual violence services and recovery support. This project is navigating new data development in a setting with complex and varied funding, service delivery and data collection models across jurisdictions. The methods developed in this project will provide the foundations for progress in new data development in other areas, such as services provided by the non-government sector in general.

Case study 2 – Gaining new insights through linking health and welfare services data

Research demonstrates poorer health and wellbeing outcomes among vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of Australians. Nation-wide evidence on the inter-relationship between the health and welfare service systems is patchy. Insights to date have mostly been achieved through one-off linked data projects, sometimes for an individual state or territory, or longitudinal survey data.

To add to the evidence on the intersection between the health and welfare service systems, the NACS dataset was created. The NACS takes its name from the datasets it combines:

1. National Death Index (NDI), which provides data on causes of death
2. Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services National Minimum Data Set (AODTS NMDS), which provides information about alcohol and other drug treatment services and the people that receive treatment
3. Commonwealth funded health services (Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)), which provides information on Medicare-subsidised services used and dispensed prescriptions under the PBS
4. Specialist Homelessness Services Collection (SHSC), which provides information on people who are referred to, or seek assistance from, specialist support homelessness services (AIHW 2025b).

The aim of the NACS project is to gain greater insight into specialised health and welfare service use and the prevalence of death (including by suicide and acute and chronic substance use) – in particular the relationship of these with risk factors, protective factors and other social determinants.

NACS comprises more than a decade of data on millions of people who received support due to housing insecurity, and people receiving treatment for drug and/or alcohol use. It also includes data for a smaller number of people’s primary health care service use prior to death. Data are de-identified and managed in a highly secure environment in accordance with the AIHW strict data governance arrangements (see also Data governance). Projects using the NACS linked dataset must be related to health and specialist service use prior to death as approved by the AIHW Ethics committee. Release of data using the NACS linked dataset are required to meet the obligations set by the individual data custodians for each of the contributing datasets, which involves a mix of governments and health and welfare policy areas.

The development of the NACS dataset is a collective effort. Collaboration with data custodians and experts from the various fields has been essential, providing a service level perspective and/or broader subject matter and research expertise. Highly skilled AIHW staff across key subject areas of alcohol and other drugs, housing and homelessness, and suicide and self-harm are collaborating on the NACS work. These teams pool their expert understanding of the underlying datasets, concepts and background knowledge from the specific areas to create an important resource unique to the NACS. Additional statistical experts from across the AIHW are also important to guide and inform the complex analysis and modelling.

To date, 3 foundational reports have been published, summarised in Foundational insights from the NACS linked dataset. The studies focused on all-cause mortality for Specialised Homelessness Services (SHS) clients, all-cause mortality for specialist alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment services clients, and patterns of suicide deaths among SHS clients. These findings are the first of their kind describing results nationally, delivering insights into mortality among people facing housing insecurity and/or receiving treatment for alcohol or drug issues. The AIHW respectfully acknowledges the people who have died who are described in these findings.

The next phase of work using the NACS linked dataset is underway to explore the intersection between clients of specialist homelessness services and/or alcohol and other drug services, patterns of primary health service use prior to death and risk factors associated with specific causes of death, including suicide and accidental overdose. The AIHW NACS team is engaging with various health and welfare government policy areas to understand emerging issues and critical evidence gaps. The NACS will also be made available to researchers outside of the AIHW for projects that fall within the approved use of the NACS, supported by the AIHW NACS team.

Other recent welfare-related data development activities

Across the welfare data landscape, the AIHW is working on and supporting various other data development activities. These include work to:

• expand and enhance data about priority population groups: for example, a new national survey under Australia’s Disability Strategy (ADS) collects information on community attitudes towards people with disability. The ADS Survey, also known as Share with Us, is conducted by the Australian National University on behalf of the Australian Government and collects information from the general community, four key sectors (health, justice and legal, education and personal and community support), people with hiring responsibilities, and people with disability or health conditions. The survey provides data on how people with disability are affected by the attitudes and behaviours of others and the extent to which attitudes can be both enablers and barriers to inclusion (see People with disability – specialised support services)
• expand the breadth of data available: the AIHW is working to increase the breadth of Child Protection National Minimum Data Set items, and ensure the collection can respond to emerging state, territory, and commonwealth Government reporting requirements, such as capturing early intervention data
• improve identification of First Nations people: by promoting best practice in collecting Indigenous status including monitoring and analysing data quality across welfare data collections
• improve the frequency of data collection and reporting: for example, more frequent reporting of recipients of Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) and the impact of CRA on rental stress
• expand existing major national linked datasets (see Greater insights from linked data sets for examples). Work is also underway to progress integration of child protection and youth justice data with the National Health Data Hub (NHDH). This will enable access to the data for the purposes of National Disability Data Asset (NDDA) and Child Wellbeing Data Asset (CWDA) research 
• provide a person-centred view: for example, AIHW is exploring how young people with experience of youth justice supervision interact with other government agencies and support services, including the flow of young people from the youth to the adult justice system through a national crime and justice data linkage project
• harness technology, electronic records and information systems: for example, the National Prisoner Health Data Collection will aim to collect data about adults in prison through extracts of jurisdictional administrative systems, rather than only through the current entirely separate data collection (see Adults in prison)
• improve data quality: for example, by applying data standards to ensure that core aged care data about people, assessments, services and providers is collected and recorded accurately and consistently (see Aged care). 

Where to from here?

For future welfare data to meet the needs of policy makers, service providers, researchers and the public, a number of improvements are needed across the data landscape (from data collection to reporting). Some examples of where data development work is needed, include:

• the lack of data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) people with disability, LGBTIQA+ people with disability, or people with disability who are homeless  (see People with disability – specialised support services)
• a need for more frequent data to be collected and reported to inform wellbeing indicators for First Nations people
• measuring people’s unmet need for services or supports
• information on services that are provided informally by the community.

Where do I go for more information?

For more information on data improvement activities in the welfare data landscape, see:

• Australian Government – Using data to improve the lives of Australians
• AIHW linked data assets
• Family, domestic and sexual violence: Key information gaps and development activities.