Community Services, Standard 29/04/2006 Housing assistance, Standard 10/02/2006 Health, Standard 08/02/2006 Early Childhood, Standard 21/05/2010 Tasmanian Health, Draft 23/07/2012 WA Health, Draft 23/08/2012
Definition:
The age of the person in (completed) years at a specific point in time.
Context:
Age is a core data element in a wide range of social, labour and demographic statistics. It is used in the analyses of service utilisation by age group and can be used as an assistance eligibility criterion.
Age in single years (if aged under one year, record as zero).
If age (or date of birth) is unknown or not stated, and cannot be estimated, use Code 999.
National community services and housing assistance data dictionary specific:
If year of birth is known (but date of birth is not) use the date, 0101YYYY of the birth year to estimate age (where YYYY is the year of birth).
National housing assistance data dictionary specific:
In the housing assistance data collections age is calculated at 30 June for the corresponding year.
Collection methods:
Although collection of date of birth allows more precise calculation of age, this may not be feasible in some data collections, and alternative questions are: Age last birthday?
What was ....... age last birthday?
What is .......... age in complete years?
Comments:
National community services data dictionary specific:
Different rules for reporting data may apply when estimating the Date of birth of children aged under 2 years since the rapid growth and development of children within this age group means that a child's development can vary considerably over the course of a year. Thus, more specific reporting of estimated age is recommended.
Those who need to conduct data collections for children where age is collected in months, weeks, or days should do so in a manner that allows for aggregation of those results to this standard.
Source and reference attributes
Submitting organisation:
National Public Health Information Working Group
Origin:
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Standards for Social, Labour and Demographic Variables. Reference through:
