The Burden of Disease and Injury in Indigenous Australians

Project: The Burden of Disease and Injury in Indigenous Australians

CRCAH Project No. CP120 Administering organisation Centre for Burden of Disease and Cost Effectiveness, University of Queensland Program Manager Barbara Beacham Project Leader Theo Vos (Centre for Burden of Disease and Cost Effectiveness, University of Queensland) Team members Alan Lopez, Steve Begg, Bridget Barker, Lucy Stanley Contact details Associate Professor Theo Vos Tel: 07 3365 5508 Fax: 07 3365 5442 Email: t.vos@sph.uq.edu.au Funding sources University of Queensland Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (Department of Health and Ageing) Remote and Rural Health Division (Department of Health and Ageing) In-kind contributors: CRC for Aboriginal Health Partners involved University of Queensland Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health CRC for Aboriginal Health Menzies School of Health Research The University of Melbourne Indigenous community organisations (various)

Project summary
The Indigenous Burden of Disease Study is a component of the Australian Burden of Disease Study, which aims to describe the health status of Australians in the year 2003. The Indigenous study specifically looks at improving knowledge of the true level of mortality, causes of death, non-fatal health states and risk factors affecting Indigenous people. A previously completed pilot burden of disease study in the Northern Territory has estimated that health inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians not only affect the length of life (three times more years of life lost due to premature deaths among Indigenous people) but also the health-related quality of life (almost a doubling of disability experienced due to non-fatal disease).

Summary of projected outcomes
The primary objectives of the Burden of Disease and Injury in Indigenous Australians project are to deliver:

1. Burden of disease estimates (deaths, years of life lost, years lived with disability, disability-adjusted life years, incidence and prevalence with details by age, sex and remote/non-remote residence) that will assist health service planners and Indigenous communities to identify those specific diseases and risk factors that are most responsible for the gap in health status between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. 
2. A platform for further analytical work on the relative cost-effectiveness of alternative intervention options in support of priority setting.

Summary of project implementation
The project analyses both mortality data and available survey and epidemiological data and routine health statistics to achieve its aims. For the mortality analyses, use is made of indirect demographic techniques for checking completeness and reliability of death registration relative to population estimates derived from census counts. For the analyses of the incidence/prevalence, average duration, remission and mortality of the 176 diseases included in the Australian Burden of Disease study, the project uses a standard burden of disease software program called DISMOD to check all disease estimates for consistency. Where available, directly observed data will determine the non-fatal disease estimates. However, for many diseases with no directly observed data, estimates will be derived from relative risks between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians of mortality, hospital episodes or reported disease occurrence in surveys. The project also estimates the burden attributable to major risk factors (including tobacco, alcohol, blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity, unsafe sex, illicit drugs, physical inactivity, inadequate diet, intimate partner violence) using the improved methods developed for the 2002 World Health Report.  

Related Documents

Summary Report - The Burden of Disease and Injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples [pdf]
Report - The Burden of Disease and Injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples [pdf]
Policy Brief - The Burden of Disease and Injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples  [pdf]

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