Data sources
This page outlines the data sources used for the Heart, stroke and vascular disease: Australian facts report.
The National Health Measures Survey (NHMS) 2022–24 collected biomedical samples from respondents who participated in the National Health Survey 2022 or the National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey 2023. Approximately 7,500 survey participants (28%) volunteered to get the biomedical tests. Urine samples were collected from respondents aged 5 and over, and blood samples from respondents aged 12 and over. Respondents could choose to provide blood and/or urine samples. Consideration should be given to the characteristics of respondents providing specific samples when interpreting results.
The NHMS aimed to provide information on chronic disease and nutrient biomarker levels and health risk factors.
For more information, see:
The 2022–24 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Measures Survey (NATSIHMS) collected biomedical samples from respondents who participated in either the 2022–23 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) or the 2023 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey. Around 2,500 participants provided biomedical samples, which was a response rate of 26%.
The NATSIHMS measured specific biomarkers for chronic disease and nutrition status, derived from tests on blood and urine samples from volunteering participants.
The National Health Survey (NHS) is conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to obtain national information on the health status of Australians, their use of health services and facilities, and health-related aspects of their lifestyle. The most recent NHS was conducted in 2022.
The NHS collects self-reported data on whether a respondent had one or more long-term health conditions; that is, conditions that lasted, or were expected to last, 6 months or more.
The NHS refers to ‘heart, stroke and vascular disease’, which comprises people who reported having been told by a doctor or a nurse that they had any of a range of circulatory conditions comprising:
- ischaemic heart diseases (angina, heart attack and other ischaemic heart diseases)
- cerebrovascular diseases (stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases)
- oedema
- heart failure
- diseases of the arteries, arterioles and capillaries
and that their condition was current and long-term; that is, their condition was current at the time of interview and had lasted, or was expected to last, 6 months or more.
Persons who reported having ischaemic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases and heart failure that were not current and long term at the time of interview are also included.
When interpreting data from the 2022 NHS, some limitations need to be considered:
- data that are self-reported rely on respondents knowing and providing accurate information.
- the survey does not include information from people living in nursing homes or otherwise institutionalised.
- residents of Very remote areas and discrete First Nations communities were excluded from the survey. This is unlikely to affect national estimates but will impact prevalence estimates by remoteness.
- medications data was obtained via linkage to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The timeframe used for analysis of PBS-NHS data in this release is based on date of supply, and spans from 6 months before the NHS interview up 6 months after. Seven percent of 2022 NHS respondents were unable to be linked to PBS data.
Further information can be found in National Health Survey.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) is conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to obtain national information on the health of First Nations people, their use of health services and health-related aspects of their lifestyle. The most recent NATSIHS was conducted in 2022–23.
The NATSIHS collects information from First Nations people of all ages in non-remote and remote areas of Australia, including discrete First Nations communities.
Between 2016 and 2021, based on Census data, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population increased by 25.2% or 163,557 people. Due to the large increase in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, care should be taken when comparing estimates from the 2022–23 NATSIHS with previous surveys. For more information see the Methodology.
Further information about the survey can be found in National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey.
The Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) is conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to collect information about people of all ages with a disability, older people aged 65 and over, and carers of people with disability or a long-term health condition or older people. The surveys included people in both private and non-private dwellings (including people in establishments where care is provided) but excluded those in correctional institutions.
ABS SDAC 2022 has been used in this report to provide estimates on the prevalence of stroke. SDAC includes comprehensive questions on long-term conditions and associated activity limitations. Unlike the National Health Survey, SDAC includes non-private dwellings, such as residential aged care facilities. This is particularly important when reporting on stroke because stroke is associated with increasing age, and many survivors of stroke require the special care that these facilities provide.
Further information can be found in ABS Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, 2022.
The AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD) is a compilation of episode-level records from admitted patient morbidity data collection systems in Australian hospitals.
Reporting to the NHMD occurs at the end of a person’s admitted episode of care (separation or hospitalisation) and is based on the clinical documentation for that hospitalisation.
The NHMD is based on the Admitted Patient Care National Minimum Data Set (APC NMDS). It records information on admitted patient care (hospitalisations) in essentially all hospitals in Australia, and includes demographic, administrative and length-of-stay data, as well as data on the diagnoses of the patients, the procedures they underwent in hospital and external causes of injury and poisoning.
The hospital separations data do not include episodes of non-admitted patient care given in outpatient clinics or emergency departments. Patients in these settings may be admitted subsequently, with the care provided to them as admitted patients being included in the NHMD.
The following care types were excluded when undertaking the analysis:
- 7.3 (newborn – unqualified days only)
- 9 (organ procurement – posthumous)
- 10 (hospital boarder).
For more information, see Admitted patient care NMDS 2023–24.
The AIHW National Mortality Database (NMD) comprises information about causes of death and other characteristics of the person, such as sex, age at death, area of usual residence and Indigenous status. The cause of death data are provided to the AIHW by the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System (managed by the Victorian Department of Justice) and include cause of death coded by the ABS. The data are maintained by the AIHW in the NMD.
In this report, deaths registered in 2021 and earlier are based on the final version of cause of death data; deaths registered in 2022 are based on the revised version; and deaths registered in 2023 and 2024 are based on the preliminary version. Revised and preliminary versions are subject to further revision by the ABS.
For data by Indigenous status, deaths and death rates are reported for 6 jurisdictions combined – New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. These jurisdictions are considered to have adequate levels of Indigenous identification in mortality data.
This report adjusts for Victorian additional death registrations of deaths that were registered in Victoria in 2017 and 2018 but were not provided to the ABS for compilation until 2019. As a result, the number of CVD deaths reported for 2017 to 2019 may differ from previously reported numbers. For more detail, see the Technical note: Victorian additional registrations and time series adjustments in Causes of death, Australian methodology.
The data quality statements underpinning the AIHW NMD can be found in the following ABS publications:
- ABS quality declaration summary for Deaths, Australia methodology.
- ABS quality declaration summary for Causes of death, Australia methodology.
For more information, see National Mortality Database (NMD).
The AIHW Disease Expenditure Database provides a broad picture of the use of health system resources classified by disease groups and conditions.
It contains estimates of expenditure by Australian Burden of Disease Study condition, age group, and sex for public and private hospital admitted patients, public hospital emergency department, and public hospital outpatient services, out-of-hospital medical services, and prescription pharmaceuticals.
It does not allocate all expenditure on health goods and services by disease – for example, neither administration expenditure nor capital expenditure can be meaningfully attributed to any particular condition due to their nature.
For more information, see Health system spending on disease and injury in Australia 2023–24.
For further details on the methods used, refer to Health system spending on disease and injury in Australia 2023–24: Overview of analysis and methodology.
The Australian Burden of Disease Study undertaken by the AIHW provides information on the burden of disease for the Australian population. Burden of disease analysis measures the impact of fatal (or years of life lost, YLL) and non-fatal burden (years lived with disability, YLD), with the sum of non-fatal and fatal burden equating the total burden (disability-adjusted life year, DALY).
The Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024 includes national estimates for 220 diseases and injuries based on projections using historical trends in data. Projected estimates were done for the first time in ABDS 2022 and have been updated annually since. Burden estimates may be revised in the future as more data becomes available.
ABDS 2024 also includes updated estimates of attributable burden due to selected modifiable risk factors, which were last updated as part of ABDS 2018.
Estimates of the burden of disease for First Nations people come from the 2022 First Nations Burden of Disease Study. Estimates of the burden of disease for First Nations people are available for 2011, 2018 and 2022.
For more information, see Burden of disease and First Nations Burden of Disease Study 2022.
The AIHW National Non-admitted Patient Emergency Department Care Database (NNAPEDCD) is a compilation of episode-level records (including waiting times for care) for non-admitted patients who are registered for care in emergency departments in selected public hospitals. The database captures information only for physical presentations to emergency departments and does not include advice provided via telehealth or videoconferencing.
Patients being treated in emergency departments may be later admitted, including admission in the emergency department, another hospital ward or to hospital‑in-the-home. For this reason, there is an overlap in the scope of the NNAPEDCD, the NMDS and the APC NMDS.
Principal diagnoses for episodes of care in the NNAPEDCD 2024–25 are coded according to the Emergency Department ICD-10-AM Principal Diagnosis Shortlist.
For more information on the NNAPEDCD, see Non-admitted patient emergency department care NMDS 2024–25.
The National Health Data Hub (NHDH) is a national, linked data asset that brings together de‑identified, longitudinal administrative data from Commonwealth, state and territory sources. The NHDH supports person-level analysis through the linkage of unit record data.
Analysis in this report made use of unit record-level data on admitted patient episodes from the National Hospital Morbidity Database to identify hospital separation to person ratios for selected cardiovascular conditions.
The NHDH includes admitted patient care data from all public hospitals in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, covering the period from July 2010 to June 2024. As private hospital data is inconsistently captured across states and territories in the NHDH, this data was not included in the analysis presented in this report. The NHDH does not current include hospitalisation data from Western Australia or the Northern Territory. Therefore, results may not be generalisable to the Australian population.