National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2013 – Data Quality Statement
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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Synonymous names: | Data Quality Statement: 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey |
METEOR identifier: | 558897 |
Registration status: | AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 28/09/2017 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: |
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Institutional environment: | The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is a major national agency set up by the Australian Government under the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 to provide reliable, regular and relevant information and statistics on Australia's health and welfare. It is an independent statutory authority established in 1987, governed by a management Board, and accountable to the Australian Parliament through the Health and Ageing portfolio. The AIHW aims to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians through better health and welfare information and statistics. It collects and reports information on a wide range of topics and issues, ranging from health and welfare expenditure, hospitals, disease and injury, and mental health, to ageing, homelessness, disability and child protection. The Institute also plays a role in developing and maintaining national metadata standards. This work contributes to improving the quality and consistency of national health and welfare statistics. The Institute works closely with governments and non-government organisations to achieve greater adherence to these standards in administrative data collections to promote national consistency and comparability of data and reporting. One of the main functions of the AIHW is to work with the states and territories to improve the quality of administrative data and, where possible, to compile national datasets based on data from each jurisdiction, to analyse these datasets and disseminate information and statistics. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987, in conjunction with compliance to the Privacy Act 1988, (Cth) ensures that the data collections managed by the AIHW are kept securely and under the strictest conditions with respect to privacy and confidentiality. For further information see the AIHW website www.aihw.gov.au The NDSHS has been analysed and managed by the AIHW since 1998 and 2001 (respectively). |
Timeliness: | The NDSHS is conducted approximately every three years over a three-four month period. 2013 data were collected between late-July and early December 2013. A preliminary data set was received by the AIHW in late-January 2014 and initial data checks were completed in early February 2014. Key findings from the 2013 NDSHS were released on 17 July 2014. |
Accessibility: | Results from the 2013 NDSHS are available on the AIHW website. Key findings can be found in the web compendium: Highlights from the 2013 survey and full published results can be found in the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey report. Users can request data not available online or in reports via the Communications, Media and Marketing Unit on (02) 6244 1032 or via email to [email protected]. Requests that take longer than half an hour to compile are charged for on a cost-recovery basis. A confidentialised unit record file is available for 3rd party analysis through the Australian Data Archive. Access to the master unit record file may be requested through the AIHW Ethics Committee.
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Interpretability: | Information to aid in interpretation of 2013 NDSHS results may be found in Chapter 1 of the 2013 NDSHS report titled ‘Introduction’. In addition, the 2013 Technical Report, code book and other supporting documentation are available through the Australian Data Archive website or may be requested from AIHW. |
Relevance: | Scope and coverage Excluded from sampling were non-private dwellings (hotels, motels, boarding houses, etc.) and institutional settings (hospitals, nursing homes, other clinical settings such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres, prisons, military establishments and university halls of residence). Homeless persons were also excluded as well as the territories of Jervis Bay, Christmas Island and Cocos Island. The exclusion of people from non-private dwellings and institutional settings, and the difficulty in reaching marginalised people are likely to have affected estimates. The 2013 NDSHS was designed to provide reliable estimates at the national level. The survey was not specifically designed to obtain reliable national estimates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as there was no target sample size for Indigenous Australians. In 2013, the sample size for Indigenous Australians was smaller than anticipated based on population estimates, and so estimates based on this population group should be interpreted with caution.
Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) and Australian and New Zealand Standard Industry Classification (ANZSIC) codes were used as the code-frame for questions relating to occupation and industry. Type of estimates available |
Accuracy: | Perceptions of behaviour However, illicit drug users, by definition, have committed illegal acts. They are, in part, marginalised and difficult to reach. Accordingly, estimates of illicit drug use and related behaviours are likely to be underestimates of actual practice The over-sampling of lesser populated states and territories produced a sample that was not proportional to the state/territory distribution of the Australian population aged 12 years or older. Weighting was applied to adjust for imbalances arising from execution of the sampling and differential response rates, and to ensure that the results relate to the Australian population.
Reported findings are based on self-reported data and not empirically verified by blood tests or other screening measures.
A low response rate does not necessarily mean that the results are biased. As long as the non-respondents are not systematically different in terms of how they would have answered the questions, there is no bias. Given the nature of the topics in this survey, some non-response bias is expected. If non-response bias in the NDSHS is to be eliminated as far as possible, there would need to be additional work conducted to investigate the demographic profile of the non-respondents and the answers they may have given had they chosen to respond. The total population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people forms a very small part of the total Australian population. At the August 2011 census, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population was officially calculated at 670,000 people, or 2.1% of the total Australian population (ABS 2008b). At that time, about one-third (35%) of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population lived in Major cities, 22% in Inner regional areas, 22% in Outer regional areas, 8% in Remote areas and 14% in Very remote areas (ABS 2013).
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Coherence: | Surveys in this series commenced in 1985. Over time, modifications have been made to the survey’s methodology and questionnaire design. The 2013 survey differs from previous versions of the survey in some of the questions asked and also used three follow up attempts by interviewers instead of the two used in 2010. Methodology The change in methodology in 2010 does have some impact on time series data, and users should exercise some degree of caution when comparing data over time. Fieldwork was conducted between July and December 2013, slightly later than in previous wave. The collection period also coincided with the 2013 federal election, although no questionnaires were placed on that day. Sample In 2013 and 2010, to improve the geographic coverage of the survey, interviewers were flown to Very remote areas selected in the sample. In previous surveys, some Very remote areas that were initially selected in the sample would have been deemed inaccessible and not included in the final sample. Questionnaire Comparison with other collections There is more than one data source for information about tobacco, alcohol and other drug use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The most common data sources used for reporting the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs by Indigenous Australians are the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) and the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (AATSIHS). Comparisons between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians can be made using data from the AATSIHS results and the 2011–12 National Healthy Survey. The surveys showed that after adjusting for differences in age structure between the two populations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over were 2.6 times as likely as non-Indigenous people to be current daily smokers (39.8% compared with 15.4%, respectively). In comparison, results from the 2013 NDSHS showed that Indigenous Australians aged 14 years or older were 2.5 times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to smoke daily (31.6% compared with 12.4%). So while the estimated proportion of smokers from the NDSHS is lower than the AATSIHS and National Health Survey estimates, the relative proportions are very similar. Analysis |
Data products | |
Implementation start date: | 01/12/2013 |
Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | Tobacco, Alcohol and Other Drug Unit, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. |
Steward: | Australian Institute of Health and Welfare |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2010 – Data Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 25/11/2014 Has been superseded by National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016 – Data Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 16/07/2020 Has been superseded by National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2019; Data Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 29/02/2024 |