Proportion of carers of people with disability accessing support services to assist in their caring role, 2011 QS
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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METEOR identifier: | 453700 |
Registration status: | Community Services (retired), Superseded 05/03/2012 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: | 1. The quality of data about carers varies substantially between jurisdictions; caution should be exercised when interpreting these data. It is recommended that the data be viewed in close conjunction with data quality information, particularly response rates.
3. The interim indicator is a proxy measure of carer access to support services based on a restricted carer population: carers of specialist disability service users. The data do not measure access to support services within the entire population of carers of people with disability and it is not known how well it approximates access to services in the wider carer population. Any marked differences across the states and territories in carer access to the disability service system will reduce the usefulness of this interim measure for comparison purposes (i.e. there may be vastly different proportions of carers outside the service system). |
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Institutional environment: | The AIHW is an Australian Government statutory authority accountable to Parliament and operates under the provisions of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987. The AIHW provides expert analysis of data on health, housing and community services. More information about the AIHW is available on the AIHW website.
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Timeliness: | CSTDA NMDS 2007–08 and 2008–09 |
Accessibility: | The AIHW provides a variety of products that draw upon the CSTDA NMDS. Published products available on the AIHW website are:
• Disability support services (annual report) • Interactive disability data cubes • Ad hoc data are available on request (charges apply to recover costs) • METeOR – online metadata repository • National Community Services Data Dictionary. |
Interpretability: | Information to assist in interpretation of the performance indicator is contained in the NDA performance indicator glossary, which accompanies these Data Quality Statements.
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Relevance: | CSTDA NMDS data are generated by processes that deliver services to people. It is assumed that these processes involve the determination of eligibility and the assessment of disability support needs following broadly consistent principles across jurisdictions. However, this assumption is untested.
The scope of services provided under the CSTDA/NDA varied across jurisdictions. In Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia (in some cases), specialist psychiatric disability services were provided under the CSTDA/NDA. In all other jurisdictions specific mental health services were funded and provided under health, rather than disability, portfolios. To facilitate comparability of data, specialist psychiatric disability services in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia are excluded from the NDA performance indicators. That is, the data excludes those who only receive specialist psychiatric disability services, but does not exclude those people with a psychiatric condition who receive other specialist disability services. In addition, the predominant service models vary across jurisdictions, and this may affect comparability of data. For example, differences across the states and territories in the predominant model of accommodation support lead to differences in the number of people accessing those services. Caution is recommended in the use or interpretation of performance at the service type level. There is a risk when service type level data is interpreted in isolation as various service types are complementary and the emphasis on different services reflects jurisdictional policy directions. For more information, see Disability support services 2007–08 and Disability support services 2008–09 (forthcoming). |
Accuracy: | A potential source of error in the CSTDA NMDS is people for whom carer information is not stated or not collected. Carer identification has improved over time: the not stated/not collected rate for the existence of a carer has decreased from approximately twenty percent for the 2003-04 to 2005-06 NMDS to the current levels of 9.3% for the 2007–08 NMDS and 8.5% for the 2008–09 NMDS. However, not stated/not collected rates for carer data items vary substantially across jurisdictions, with, for example, rates above thirty percent for Queensland in 2007–08 and below five percent for Tasmania. The overall not stated/not collected rates for the carer data items were: 19.3% in 2008–09 for carer primary status (11.6% in 2007–08); 18.4% in 2008–09 for carer residency status (12.5% in 2007–08); 16.1% in 2008–09 for carer relationship to service user (8.4% in 2007–08); and 23.9% in 2008–09 for carer age group (19.1% in 2007–08). See the accompanying appendix for further details. Not stated or not collected carer information may introduce bias into the results affecting both the accuracy of estimates and the comparability of estimates across jurisdictions. In addition, a coding audit of carer data items has not been undertaken, thus the accuracy of the carer information in the NMDS is not known. |
Coherence: | Issue of scope: any marked differences across the states and territories in carer access to the disability service system will reduce the usefulness of this interim measure for comparison purposes (i.e. there may be vastly different proportions of carers outside the service system). For general issues relating to the CSTDA NMDS, refer to the CSTDA NMDS Data Quality Statement. |
Data products | |
Implementation start date: | 06/07/2011 |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | |
Indicators linked to this Data Quality statement: |