Disability Services National Minimum Data Set (DS NMDS) - Data Quality Statement
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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Synonymous names: | DS NMDS DQS |
METEOR identifier: | 518043 |
Registration status: | AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 04/07/2014 |
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, 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 AIHW has been maintaining a minimum data set on disability support services since 1994, firstly as a snapshot collection and then from 2003–04 as an annual collection. |
Timeliness: | The publication Disability Support Servicesand associated online data cubes are released annually. The present version of the DS NMDS contains data on disability support services provided under the NDA in 2011–12. The DS NMDS cannot be compiled for a given year until each jurisdiction is able to supply data for that year. Jurisdictional data submissions are due at the AIHW by the end of September each year following the end of the collection period, with final sign-off of national validated and linked data due February the following year. Data are required to be released by the end of the following August. In 2011–12, the last jurisdictional data submission was received 11 January 2013 and the final jurisdiction gave sign-off 15 February 2013. The AIHW has been reporting on disability support services collected under the various iterations of the national disability agreements since 1994. |
Accessibility: | The AIHW website provides disability support services data which can be downloaded free of charge. Numerous reports, including the annual Disability Support Services report, are published and are available on the AIHW website where they can be downloaded without charge. Users can request data not available online or in reports via the Functioning and Disability Unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare via email to [email protected]. Requests that take longer than half an hour to compile are charged for on a cost-recovery basis. General enquiries about AIHW publications can be made to the Communications, Media and Marketing Unit on (02) 6244 1032 or via email to [email protected]. |
Interpretability: | Information on the DS NMDS is available on the AIHW website. This includes the DS NMDS collection materials. The main counts of the DS NMDS collection are service users and service type outlets. A service type outlet is a statistical counting unit of an agency that provides a particular NDA service type at, or from, a discrete location. Data are collected, usually by agencies, for each service type outlet. Data on service users are collected against the service types (service type outlets) over the collection period. Note that service user data are not collected in relation to two of the seven service groups—‘advocacy, information and alternative forms of communication’ and ‘other support’. Further, the level of information required to be collected varies according to the particular service type. For more information on what information is collected against each service type as well as a description of each service type, see the DS NMDS data guide. The scope of services vary in terms of the programs that are provided under the NDA across jurisdictions. For example, in Victoria and Queensland, specialist psychiatric disability services are provided under the NDA. However, in all other jurisdictions, specific mental health services are provided under health, rather than disability, portfolios. Further, certain services, such as early intervention services for children with disability, fall within the disability support system in some states but are administered under the education portfolio in others. |
Relevance: | All states and territories, FaHCSIA and DEEWR supply data on the disability services provided under the NDA to the AIHW annually. These are compiled into the DS NMDS. The publication Disability Support Services and associated online data cubes are released annually. The present version of the DS NMDS contains data on disability support services provided under the NDA in 2011–12. The DS NMDS is highly relevant for reporting on the use of disability support services under the NDA. The data are used for many purposes, for example, by policy-makers to evaluate and plan disability programs. The DS NMDS also contains a statistical linkage key for each service users. This allows researchers to link their database to the DS NMDS (noting that such data linkage can only be undertaken after receiving approvals from various ethics committees). Metadata information for the DS NMDS are published in the AIHW’s online metadata repository—METeOR, and the DS NMDS data guide. |
Accuracy: | Each year, when all the jurisdictions’ data are compiled into the DS NMDS, a national validation and data linkage process is undertaken. To form service user counts, a statistical linkage key is used. The statistical linkage key enables the number of service users to be estimated from data collected from service type outlets and agencies. During any given financial year, a service user can receive services from:
In each of these cases, service user counts can be estimated by using the statistical linkage key. All counts of the number of service users depend on the accuracy of the statistical linkage key. A linkage key is considered to be invalid if any, or all, parts of the key are missing (excluding sex). To link records within the DS NMDS, the statistical linkage key components of each record for a service received are compared electronically with the statistical linkage key components of all other records. Records that have matching statistical linkage keys are assumed to belong to the same individual service user and are linked. A small degree of false linking is expected. Because the statistical linkage key is not a unique identifier, there is a small probability that some of the linked records do not belong to the same individual, and, conversely, that some records that did not link do belong to the same individual. Records with missing or invalid statistical linkage keys cannot be linked to other records, and so must be treated as belonging to separate individual service users. This may result in the number of service users being slightly overestimated. Service type outlet and service user participation rates, as well as the response rates to various data items, need to be considered when interpreting data. These vary across years and jurisdictions. Jurisdictions report their service type outlet participation rates—the number of outlets that contributed to the DS NMDS collection compared with the total number of outlets in the jurisdiction. While every effort is made to incorporate responses from all service type outlets provided under the NDA, each year a small number are not included. As response rates from service type outlets approach 100%, data can be considered more reliable. Likewise, it is recognised that some outlets do not report on all service users, due to administration or other errors, and it is not possible to accurately estimate the number of service users who may be missing from the data as a result. Some service type outlets have a large number of service users who have minimal contact, such as information and referral services. These service types are not required to submit service user information to the DS NMDS, and as a result users of these services are not included in totals. All service type outlets are required to estimate the number of service users they helped over the year; however, analysis of these estimates and comparison with jurisdictional reports indicate that such estimations are of poor quality and are not reliable, so are not included in this report. Data quality can be considered more reliable as user response rates increase. Non-response rates to data items vary across jurisdiction and service type. High levels of non-response reduce the validity and reliability of data, and items with high proportions should be considered with care, especially when comparing data across jurisdictions and collection years. These generally occur when a service user or service type outlet does not provide/collect information on a service user, or when information is unable to be derived by statistical linkage processes. In some instances, particular service types are not required to submit data for all measures. Information on the validity of the statistical linkage key and on participation and response rates for 2011–12 are provided in the appendix to Disability Support Services 2011-12 (see tables A2–A6 and Table B18). |
Coherence: | DS NMDS data are reported and published annually by the AIHW. The scope of services included in the DS NMDS vary in terms of the programs that that are provided under the NDA across jurisdictions. For example, in Victoria and Queensland, specialist psychiatric disability services are provided under the NDA. However, in all other jurisdictions, specific mental health services are provided under health, rather than disability, portfolios. Further, certain services, such as early intervention services for children with disability, fall within the disability support system in some states but are administered under the education portfolio in others. Service type outlet and service user participation rates as well as the response rates to various data items vary across years and jurisdictions (see ‘Accuracy’ for further detail). While there have been some changes in the collection over the years, some meaningful comparisons can be made over time, particularly from 2007–08 onwards. Some major changes to the collection include:
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Data products | |
Implementation start date: | 01/07/2012 |
Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | AIHW |
Steward: | Disability Policy and Research Working Group (DPRWG) |
Origin: | Disability Support Services 2011-12: Appendix |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Has been superseded by Disability Services National Minimum Data Set (DS NMDS) - Data Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 15/04/2020 |