About the AIHW

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is a major national agency that provides authoritative information and statistics to promote better health and wellbeing among Australians. We are an independent statutory agency in the Health portfolio.

Our role

The AIHW is committed to providing high-quality national health- and welfare-related data and analysis across all relevant sectors, presented in meaningful and relevant ways and delivered in a timely manner. Accurate statistical information, comprehensive data development and high-quality analyses support an increased understanding of health and welfare issues. This evidence base is critical to good policymaking and effective service delivery, both of which have a direct impact on the lives of Australians.

We are custodians of several major national health and welfare data collections, and maintain close engagement with our data providers to ensure the quality and integrity of our work. We aim to communicate our data, information and analytical products as widely as possible in accessible formats to key stakeholders and the broader public.

Our values

Our decisions and interactions with our colleagues and external stakeholders are guided by these values:

  • objectivity—ensuring our work is objective, impartial and reflects our purpose
  • responsiveness—meeting the changing needs of those who provide or use data and information that we collect
  • accessibility—making data and information as accessible as possible
  • privacy—safeguarding the privacy of all individuals and groups about whom we collect data or who provide data to us
  • expertise—applying and developing highly specialised knowledge and standards
  • innovation—developing original, relevant and valued new products, processes and services.

In performing our work, we exemplify the Australian Public Service values. We are:

  • impartial, committed to service, accountable, respectful and ethical.

We promote best practice in the collection, compilation and dissemination of statistics consistent with the National Statistical Service key principles:

  • statistical integrity, relevance, coherence, timeliness, accessibility, interpretability, accuracy, professionalism and trust of data providers.