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Notwithstanding some improvements, data for Indigenous people are of poor quality in several key areas.

Indicator

Data Priority

Life expectancy and causes of death

Continue work on improving quality and availability of Indigenous data, including changes over time.

Substantiated child abuse and neglect; children on care and protection orders

Develop data collections to better reflect the underlying extent of child protection issues that are not necessarily apparent from administrative data on substantiations, notifications and orders.

Alcohol and tobacco consumption; drug and other substance use

Collect regular data comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous consumption and more robust data by jurisdictional and geographic levels.

Birthweight

Extend data collections to focus on the Indigenous status of babies (rather than mothers).

Hearing impediments

Collect data to enable the assessment of the true burden of hearing loss and the type and severity of ear infections in the Indigenous population.

Hospitalisations data

Improve quality of Indigenous identification in hospital administrative systems.

Social and emotional wellbeing

Improve data on comparable measures of social and emotional wellbeing.

Family and community violence

Improve data on relationship of victim to offender and comparability between states and territories.

Children with tooth decay

Expand the availability of comparable data on children’s dental health.

Juvenile diversions

Collect comparable national data

Self employment and Indigenous business

Collect regular data on Indigenous business and self-employment.

Access to clean water and functional sewerage

Collect regular data allowing comparison between services in
Indigenous communities and those delivered by major utilities.