Summary
Overweight and obesity are major public health issues in Australia, associated with significant risk for chronic disease, and large costs for the health system. It is important to monitor overweight and obesity to describe existing health patterns, populations at risk, current health service use, and future demands on the health and welfare system.
This report assesses the potential for existing data sources to improve our understanding of overweight and obesity. Although many of the data sources identified were not designed primarily for monitoring overweight and obesity, they do contain relevant data.
This report acknowledges:
- Data are available for:
- behavioural risk factors
- prevalence of overweight and obesity.
- Data are available but require further development for:
- prevention, treatment and management activities for overweight and obesity, particularly to fill substantial gaps in relation to early intervention and prevention activity and care provided in primary health-care settings
- death and disability associated with overweight and obesity, noting additional information is expected in 2019 from new Australian estimates of burden of disease
- quality of life associated with overweight and obesity health expenditure associated with overweight and obesity.
- Future opportunities for improving data include:
- data linkage to enhance the information that can be gained using existing data enhancing primary health-care data
- access to complementary novel data sources
- surveys specific for people who are overweight or obese to; for example, to track their pathways across the health system and impacts on quality of life, and/or specific questions on overweight and obesity in existing surveys.
A 4-step process has been used to assess the utility of different data sources, including an initial stocktake, a review of in-scope data sources, an assessment of individual data sources and lastly an overall assessment. This methodological approach has been adapted from Data sources for monitoring arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions (AIHW 2014).
Summary
1. Introduction
1.1 Why monitoring overweight and obesity is important
- Prevalence
- Quality of life, physical functioning and disability
- Cost to the health system
1.2 What are the priority information areas?
1.3 How do we assess how well we can currently answer key questions?
1.4 Structure of this report
2. Description of the data sources
2.1 Types of data sources
- Administrative data sources
- Survey-based data sources
- Registry data sources
- Derived data sources
- Longitudinal data sources
2.2 Key data sources for monitoring overweight and obesity in Australia
3. To what extent can in-scope data sources answer key questions?
3.1 Key question 1—Risk factors
- Why collect information about risk factors?
- What information is available?
- Why collect information about prevalence?
- Data gaps and limitations
3.2 Key question 2—Prevalence
- What information is available?
- Data gaps and limitations
3.3 Key question 3—Prevention, management and treatment
- Why collect information about prevention, management and treatment?
- What information is available?
- Data gaps and limitations
3.4 Key question 4—Health-related quality of life
- Why collect information about quality of life?
- What information is available?
- Data gaps and limitations
3.5 Key question 5—Death and disability
- Why collect information about death and disability?
- What information is available?
- Data gaps and limitations
3.6 Key question 6—Health expenditure
- Why collect information about health expenditure?
- What information is available?
- Data gaps and limitations
4. Discussion
4.1 Comparative assessment
- Priority information areas with well-developed data
- Priority information areas with developed data
- Priority information areas where data requires development
- Priority information areas where data is lacking
- Equity-focused monitoring capabilities
- Overall summary of findings
4.2 Future opportunities for data development
- Data integration and linkage
- Primary health care data development
- Preservation of routine collections
- Enhancements to existing data sources
- Emerging and novel data sources
- Environmental risk and market monitoring
Appendices
End matter: Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Glossary; References; List of tables; List of figures; Related publications