Page 151 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS193 Michael Beahan
As an Aboriginal leader, public health policy advisor and health data user,
University of Canberra Chancellor Professor Tom Calma AO said policy makers
and governments need the most accurate data possible to inform good
decision making. Professor Calma made the following points:-
 “While no health intervention will be effective unless the community
own it and drive it, more detailed and more accurate data is important,
particularly when we consider social and cultural determinants of
health,”
 “Mortality data is one of the real statistical measures of a population’s
long term health and wellbeing - you’ve got to recognise these
statistics are people, they’re real.
 “When we look at Infant Mortality Rates it’s extreme for Indigenous
people. We want to see that there are improvements and try to identify
the catalysts that have led to improvements.”
 “Without the ability to pull together data sets we would be in a ‘hit and
miss’ situation and we ignore the data at our peril. We need to move
away from politicians and their gut feelings to looking at the data and
what it is telling us and using it to drive the interventions.”
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) uses ABS mortality
data to inform the Australian Burden of Disease Study, exploring fatal disease
among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The ABS’ data integration
work on this project and others provides policy makers and the community
with more accurate data while maintaining the highest level of individual
privacy for respondents.
The ABS Mortality Project is giving policymakers a better measure of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy in Australia. This improved
data accuracy means the COAG goal of closing the mortality gap between
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians
can be better informed and monitored.

Education
What difference does in-school vocational education and training (VET)
make to Year 10-12 students? Does VET in school improve Year 12 retention?
How likely are those students to go on to further education? What are their
employment outcomes? How can we improve these outcomes?
In answering those questions, the Census and Vocational Education and
Training in Schools project addressed a critical gap in our understanding of
the post-school outcomes for students undertaking VET in Schools.
Where policy makers used to make assumptions about efficacy and
impact, they now have evidence. In fact, the project demonstrated that
students who do VET in Schools and do not go on to higher education have
better engagement and employment outcomes. It also showed that male

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