Introduction

The Overview provides a comprehensive summary of the most recent indicators of the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. Where possible, information is detailed for individual states and territories: New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (Vic), Queensland (Qld), Western Australia (WA), South Australia (SA), Tasmania (Tas), the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and the Northern Territory (NT).

Since the publication of our Overview in 2020, we have actively participated in discussions and sought advice on data sovereignty and governance in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. Evidence from Australia attests to the importance of this issue to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people [42504]. We continue to strive to develop our capacity to accurately and authentically represent the data and statistics that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. It is a journey that we share with other data-driven organisations such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). Following on from previous editions of the Overview, we have relied less on comparisons between Indigenous and non-Indigenous data. Of course, as with the previous Overview this depends on the availability of data. We reiterate our public commitment to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to advance our understanding of data sovereignty and governance consistent with the principles and aspirations of the Maiam nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective.

Sources of information

The Overview provides the latest up-to-date data on the health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. For readers interested in historical health data for selected health conditions, these data are available in previous editions of the Overview.

Research for the Overview involves the collection, collation and analysis of a wide range of relevant information, including both published and unpublished material. Sources include government reports, particularly those produced by the ABS, the AIHW, the Health Chief Executives Forum [formerly the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council (AHMAC)], and the Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision (SCRGSP). Important additions to the regular ABS and AIHW publications are a series of special reports that bring together key information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and related areas:

• The Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage reports, produced by the SCRGSP, and published by the Productivity Commission; the report has been published biennially since 2003.
• Reports in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health performance framework series with substantial detailed analyses, prepared by AHMAC from 2006 to 2020 and from then by the AIHW and National Indigenous Australians Agency.
• Reports on government services, produced by the SCRGSP and published annually by the Productivity Commission since 2003.

The Overview also draws on information from the main administrative data collections (such as the birth and death registration systems and the hospital inpatient collections) and national surveys, for example, the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health surveys. Information from these sources has been published mainly in government reports, particularly those produced by the ABS, the AIHW and the SCRGSP. It also relies on a wide variety of other information sources including registers for specific diseases and other conditions; regional and local surveys and epidemiological and other studies examining particular diseases, conditions and health determinants. Information from these sources is disseminated mainly through journals and similar periodicals, or in special reports, such as the annual reports of the Kirby Institute and the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry (ANZDATA).

We are pleased that many of these data sources are actively engaged in the national debate on data sovereignty and governance and the extent to which their efforts are reflected in publications and data sets; we have attempted to represent them in the Overview.

A number of sections include the results of our own analyses of data obtained from a variety of sources. For example, estimates of the age-standardised incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) were made using notification data provided by ANZDATA.