RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

Further Information

Asthma indicator monitoring and surveillance

A series of 24 indicators have been developed and recommended for use for asthma monitoring and surveillance. The indicators cover the broad areas of:

• Prevalence
• Impact (disability, quality of life, mortality)
• Risk factors
• Health care utilisation
• Management practices

ACAM is responsible for reporting on the current levels, recent trends and socio-demographic patterns in these areas. This task will involve analysis of data from a range of Government and Non Government organisations, who are all considered to be key stakeholders in asthma and asthma monitoring. This will include surveys from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, collections held by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), State Government Health Surveys, and administrative collections.

Data development

In the course of reporting on asthma indicators and in consultation with relevant agencies, the Centre will be responsible for identifying those indicators for which existing data are not available or are inadequate for asthma monitoring. Specific projects to develop and validate new data collection tools, and to validate existing tools as measures of the chosen indicators, will then be developed and proposed. This may include development of new questions to gather asthma data beter existing data collections.