Table 3.

Example of Australian Data Sources that might be used to establish health status of regional population

Routine National Surveillance Data
Census data	Age, gender, socioeconomic index, ethnicity, etc.
Morbidity and Mortality	National Death Index, Burden of Disease Studies[44]
Regular surveys	National Health Survey, ABS Cause of Death statistics etc.
Administrative data sets
Hospital data bases	Inpatient minimum datasets, Outpatient minimum datasets
Medicare data	Medical services MBS (Medical Benefits Schedule) on-line data,
	Prescription pharmaceuticals PBS (pharmaceutical benefits schedule) online
Specialist insurers	Veterans Affairs, Transport Accident, WorkCover, etc.
Disease/condition specific, cohort data
Disease Registers	Diabetes, Cancer, joint replacement register
Special Surveys, including	Screening surveys; Region-specific (e.g., Busselton, Dubbo cohort studies), Record-linkage studies, etc.
Primary care data sets	Divisions of general practice; Primary care collaboratives

Note: Full references to all data sources available through correspondence with authors