Introduction
The annual reports on adult health, produced for each area health service from the continuous New South Wales Population Health Survey, aim to assist with monitoring the health of the population, and support policy development and service planning.
NSW Health has identified a number of indicators for inclusion:
Health behaviours
Risk-alcohol drinking, high risk-alcohol drinking, influenza immunisation, pneumococcal immunisation, injury prevention (smoke alarms), adequate fruit intake, adequate vegetable intake, 3 or more serves of vegetables, consumption of lower fat or skim milk, adequate physical activity, current smoking, and smoke-free households.
Health status
Self-rated health, current asthma, diabetes or high blood glucose, mental health (psychological distress), oral health (all natural teeth missing), overweight and obesity, and obesity.
Health services
Difficulties getting health care, emergency department care rating, hospital care rating, and public dental care rating.
Social capital
Most people can be trusted, and visit neighbours.
These indicators are presented in graphical and tabular form. Each indicator includes a bar chart and a line graph. The bar chart presents the indicator by age group for the current year and compares area data with NSW. The line chart presents the indicator by sex for the years data have been collected and includes: (1) a prevalence estimate for the area, (2) a predicted prevalence for the area, and (3) a prevalence estimate for New South Wales.
The table below the charts present prevalence estimates for males, females and persons and includes the 95% confidence intervals (CI), which provides a range of values that contain the actual value 95% of the time. A wider confidence interval reflects less certainty in the estimate. If confidence intervals do not overlap then the observed estimates are significantly different. If confidence intervals overlap slightly the observed estimates may be significantly different but further testing needs to be done to establish that significance.
The table below the line chart also presents predicted prevalence estimates for males, females and persons, calculated using the FORECAST procedure in SAS version 9. The model for this procedure was Holt exponential smoothing, designed to use all of the observed annual prevalence estimates, which takes into account the increasing or decreasing trend in the prevalence estimates over time. The model uses past data as a basis for estimating future prevalence estimates. In this model, later prevalence estimates are given more importance than earlier prevalence estimates.
For comparisons between age groups within a year it is advisable to use the prevalence estimates and the 95% confidence intervals. However, for comparisons between years, and to inform target setting, it is advisable to use the predicted prevalence estimates and the forecast estimates for 2009.
This report is available in PDF and HTML versions, which can be downloaded from the New South Wales Population Health Survey website at www.health.nsw.gov.au/publichealth/surveys/index.asp. Further information about the New South Wales Population Health Survey, including the 2008 Summary Report on Adult Health, which includes details about how the survey was conducted in 2008, as well as previous survey results and methods, can also be obtained from the website.
| Source: | New South Wales Population Health Survey 2008 (HOIST). Centre for Epidemiology and Research, NSW Department of Health. |
| Print version: | Although this page can be printed directly from your web browser, a higher quality version is available as a PDF file that can be printed or viewed on screen. |
| Produced by: | Centre for Epidemiology and Research, Population Health Division, NSW Department of Health. |
| Last updated on: | 1 March 2009 |