Patterns over a 5-year period

Over the 5‑‍year period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021, about 553,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people received at least one Indigenous‑‍specific health check. This is equivalent to over half (63%) of the Indigenous population at 30 June 2021, acknowledging that a small proportion of those patients may have either died or moved overseas during the 5‑‍year period.

The 553,000 Indigenous‑‍specific health check patients included around:

  • 222,000 people who received 1 health check during the 5‑‍year period (equivalent to 25% of the Indigenous population)
  • 145,000 people who received 2 health checks (16%)
  • 97,000 people who received 3 health checks (11%)
  • 59,000 people who received 4 health checks (7%)
  • 30,000 people who received 5 or more health checks (3%) (Figure 7).

Indigenous females were more likely than Indigenous males to have received at least one Indigenous‑‍specific health check during the 5‑‍year period – equivalent to 66% of the Indigenous female population (289,000 females) compared with 60% of the Indigenous male population (264,000 males).

Figure 7: Indigenous‑‍specific health check patients, by number of checks, 2016–17 to 2020–21 combined

An interactive bar graph showing the distribution of Indigenous Australians by how many health checks they received between July 2016 and June 2021. 553,000 people, equivalent to 63% of the Indigenous population, received at least one health check over the 5-year period. People most commonly had 1 or 2 health checks over the period. Sex is also shown, with 66% of females having received at least one health check, compared with 60% of males. Refer to table 'HC09' in data tables.

Over the 5‑‍year period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021, across states and territories, the proportion of the Indigenous population who received:

  • at least one Indigenous‑‍specific health check was highest in the Northern Territory (equivalent to 78%), followed by Queensland (76%); the proportion was lowest in Tasmania (34%).
  • 5 or more Indigenous‑‍specific health checks was highest in Queensland (5.9%), and lowest in Tasmania (1.0%) (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Indigenous‑‍specific health check patients, by state and territory, and number of checks, 2016–17 to 2020–21 combined

An interactive choropleth map and bar chart showing the distribution of Indigenous Australians by how many health checks they received between July 2016 and June 2021, across states and territories. For example, 61,000 people living in the Northern Territory had at least one health check over the 5-year period – equivalent to 78% of the estimated Indigenous population in 2020-21. Refer to table 'HC10' in data tables.