Updates

6 March 2025

Data updates

Closing the Gap dashboard: New IREG level and remoteness data available for select Closing the Gap targets, which complement the release of the Closing the Gap targets: key findings and implications report.

For a number of targets (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) the latest data is from the 2021 Census, with additional disaggregation by geography now available. For other targets, the latest data is the same used for analyses in the Closing the Gap targets: key findings and implications report, with additional disaggregation by geography also presented in this update.

Target 1: Life expectancy – remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level.
Target 2: Healthy birth-weight – remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level.
Target 3: Early childhood education – remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level, remoteness data added to STE level.
Target 4: Children assessed as developmentally on track – new IREG level dashboard has been added; remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level.
Target 5: Attaining year 12 or equivalent qualification (age 20-24) – remoteness data added to AUS, STE and IREG levels; SEIFA data added to AUS level.
Target 6: Higher education completion (Age 25-34) – remoteness data added to AUS, STE and IREG levels; SEIFA data added to AUS level.
Target 7: Engaged in employment, education or training (age 15-24) – remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level.
Target 8: Economic participation (Age 25-64) – remoteness data added to AUS, STE and IREG levels.
Target 9: Secure, appropriate and affordable housing – remoteness data added to AUS level.
Target 11: Young people in criminal justice system (Age 10-17) – new IREG level dashboard has been added; remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level; updated to the latest data available for AUS and STE levels (2022-23).
Target 12: Children in out-of-home care – new IREG level dashboard has been added; remoteness and SEIFA data added to AUS level; updated to the latest data available (2023).
Target 13: Family violence and abuse against women and children – remoteness data added to AUS level.
Target 14: Social and emotional wellbeing – remoteness data added to AUS level; updated to the latest data available (2018-2022).

13 December 2024

Data updates

Regional overview dashboard:

Local Government Area (LGA) data has been added for the health service use topic
MBS data at the LGA level has also been added for health checks, up to 2023–24.

25 July 2024

Website enhancements

The July 2024 RIFIC website update includes a number of data updates, enhancements and structural changes. These changes include:

Life stages: 5 new Life stages dashboards now available.
- Mothers and babies
- Children (0-14 years)
- Adolescents and youth (15-24 years)
- Adults (25-49 years)
- Older people (50+ years)
Regional overview:
- Data updates
  - Health conditions: updated hospitalisations data
  - Health service use: updated potentially preventable hospitalisations data, health check data
  - People and community: updated Estimated Residential Population data by remoteness
  - Life expectancy and mortality: updated mortality data, by remoteness
- Further updates to the dashboard layout based on user feedback. This includes changes to dashboard menu and graph display to allow easier navigation.
Help page: User Guide has been updated based on new website layout, and is now available for download.
Closing the Gap: Updates to the dashboard layout based on user feedback. This includes changes to dashboard menu and graph display to allow easier navigation.
Enhancing all of the dashboard’s design with improved accessibility, such as print and listen functionalities.

Further changes have also been made to pages under the Resources heading (such as Data availability; Technical notes) to ensure they align with the above changes.

15 December 2023

Website enhancements

The December 2023 RIFIC website update includes a number of enhancements and major structural changes. These changes include:

Regional overview: updates to dashboard layout based on user feedback, including instructions for use and accordion widgets containing further information and tips. Additional topics (Health services and Chronic kidney disease) added. New feature added so previous data can be viewed as well as most recent.
Closing the Gap: New Closing the Gap dashboard added, to provide lower level data on Closing the Gap Targets and associated data.
Services map: New dashboard added with the locations of general practitioners; public hospitals; private hospitals and Indigenous Health Service locations.
Life stages: Progress is being made towards creating a Life stages dashboard. Previous Life Stages content has been removed.
Topics: Topics pages have been removed.
Access data: Access data page has been removed.

Further changes have also been made to pages under the Resources heading to ensure they align with the above changes.

Data updates

The following Regional overview topics contain data updates.

Regional overview topic	Data source	New data period	Previous data period
People and communities	Census of Population and Housing 2021	2021	2016
People and communities	Estimated Resident Population 2021	2021	2016
Education and work	Census of Population and Housing 2021	2021	2016
Pregnancy and birth	National Perinatal Data Collection	2019-2021	2016-2018
Health conditions	Census of Population and Housing 2021	2021	New data item
Health conditions	National Hospitals Morbidity Database (AUS, STE, SA4 and IREG only)	2017-18 to 2021-22	New data item
Life expectancy and mortality	National Mortality Database	2017-2021	2014-2017
Life expectancy and mortality	ABS Life tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (AUS and STE only)	2020-2022	2015-2017
Housing circumstances	Census of Population and Housing 2021	2021	2016
Health services use	Census of Population and Housing 2021	2021	New topic
Health services use	National Hospitals Morbidity Database	2017-18 to 2021-22	New topic
Health services use	National Health Workforce Dataset (AUS, STE and SA4 only)	2021	New topic
Health services use	Medicare Benefits Schedule	2021-22	New topic
Health services use	BreastScreen Australia (AUS and STE only)	2019-2020	New topic
Health services use	National Elective Surgery Wait Times Dataset (AUS and STE only)	2021-22	New topic
Health services use	National Non-Admitted Emergency Department Care Database (AUS and STE only)	2019-21	New topic
Chronic kidney disease	Census of Population and Housing 2021	2021	New topic
Chronic kidney disease	Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry	2021	New topic
Chronic kidney disease	National Hospitals Morbidity Database	2017-18 to 2021-22	New topic

9 December 2022

The December 2022 RIFIC website update includes the release of a help page, a new Topic, Regional Overview Dashboard enhancements, and updates to a range of data sources.

Help page

The Help page is an addition found under Resources, created to assist you in using the RIFIC website. On the help page are how to videos, a user guide, frequently asked questions, and some more detail about the RIFIC data journey.

New Health Services Topic

A new Health Services Topic has been added where you will be able to find national, and state and territory level data, on access to services, cultural safety, potentially preventable hospitalisations, antenatal care and Indigenous-specific health checks and primary care.

Regional Overview Dashboard enhancements

Additional region types have been added to the Regional Overview Dashboard. The region types added to the dashboard are Indigenous Locations (ILOC) and Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4).

Data updates

The table below outlines the data sources that have been updated for the December release. Relevant Topics/Life stages and affected supplementary tables are also indicated.

Note, old versions of supplementary tables are still available under archived content on the Access data page.

Data sources updated for Topics and Life stages, 9 December 2022

Data source	Last time period reported	Number of tables updated	Topics and/or Life stages updated
National Schools Statistics Collection	2019	4	Education and work
National Student Attendance Data Collection	2019	4	Education and work; Children
National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN)	2018 and 2019	3	Education and work; Children
Department of Social Services Payment Demographic data	June 2018	1	Education and work
Medicare Benefits Schedule data	2018–19	1	Health services (moved from Health risk factors topic)
AIHW Burden of Disease databases	2011	1	Health conditions
National Rheumatic Heart Disease Data Collection	2019	2	Health conditions
National Mortality Database	2014–2018	10	Life expectancy and mortality
ABS Deaths Registrations collection	2019	2	Life expectancy and mortality
ABS Causes of Death collection	2015–2019	2	Life expectancy and mortality
National Hospital Morbidity Database	2018–19	2	Life expectancy and mortality
Specialist Homelessness Collection	2019–20	1	Housing circumstances and health
National Perinatal Data Collection	2017 and 2018	18	Mothers and babies; Adolescents and youth
Australian Early Development Census	2018	3	Children

Data tables updated for Topics and Life stages, 9 December 2022

Topic/Life stage	Table/s
Education and work (EW)	Table EW 2: Number of students enrolled in Australian schools, by year level and Indigenous status, 2021 Table EW 3: Number of students enrolled in Australian schools, by Indigenous status and school type, 2021 Table EW 4: Number of students enrolled in Australian schools, by Indigenous status, state and territory and broad school level, 2021 Table EW 5a: School attendance rate among Indigenous students, by state and territory and year level, 2021 Table EW 5b: School attendance rate, by Indigenous status, state and territory and year level, 2021 Table EW 5c: Time series for school attendance rate, by Indigenous status, state and territory and year level, 2014 to 2021 Table EW 6: Apparent Year 7/8 to Year 12 retention rates, by Indigenous status, 2011 to 2021 Table EW 7a: Reading achievement among Australian students over time, by Indigenous status and school year, 2008 to 2021 Table EW 7b: Numeracy achievement among Australian students over time, by Indigenous status and school year, 2008 to 2021 Table EW 23: Main income support payment received by Indigenous Australians, number and share in total recipients, June 2022
Health conditions (HC)	Table HC 1: Burden of disease among Australians, by Indigenous status, disease group and sex, 2018 Table HC 12a: Acute rheumatic fever diagnoses among Indigenous Australians, Qld, WA, SA and NT, by year of diagnosis, 2016–2020 Table HC 12b: New rheumatic heart disease diagnoses among Indigenous Australians, by year of diagnosis, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2016–2020
Life expectancy and mortality (LM)	Overview map: Indigenous deaths per 100,000 population (age-standardised, annual), 2015–2019 Table LM 3: Death rates, by age at death and Indigenous status, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2015–2019 Table LM 4: Summary of Indigenous deaths, by remoteness, Australia, 2021 Table LM 5: Death rates over time, Indigenous Australians, by remoteness, Australia, 2013–2021 Table LM 6: Leading causes of death, by sex and Indigenous status, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2015–2019 Table LM 7: Selected causes of death, by Indigenous status, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2008–2019 Table LM 8: Potentially avoidable deaths, Indigenous Australians, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2015–2019 Table LM 9: Potentially avoidable deaths per 100 premature deaths, Indigenous Australians aged 0–74, by sex, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2015–2019 Table LM 10: Potentially avoidable death rates, Indigenous Australians aged 0–74, by age at death, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2015–2019 Table LM 11: Potentially avoidable deaths, Indigenous Australians aged 0–74, by cause of death, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2015–2019 Table LM 12: Potentially avoidable death rates over time, Indigenous Australians aged 0–74, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2006–2019 Table LM 13a: Suicide deaths, Indigenous Australians, by age and sex, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2017–2021 Table LM 13b: Suicide deaths, Indigenous Australians, by state and territory, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2017–2021 Table LM 13c: Suicide deaths by Indigenous status and sex, NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT, 2001 to 2020 Table LM 14a: Intentional self-harm hospitalisations among Indigenous Australians, by age and sex, 2020–2021 Table LM 14b: Intentional self-harm hospitalisations among Indigenous Australians, 2008–09 to 2020–21
Housing circumstances and health (HH)	Table HH 14: Indigenous Australian clients who were homeless and sought assistance from Specialist Homelessness Services, by main reason for seeking assistance, by sex, 2020–21
Health services (HS) (moved from Health risk factors (HR) topic)	Table HS 1: Indigenous Australians who had an Indigenous-specific health check, by remoteness and state and territory, 2020–21 (previously named 'Table HR 16: Indigenous Australians who had an Indigenous-specific health check, by remoteness and state and territory, 2020–21')
Mothers and babies (MB)	Overview map: Indigenous babies born in 2020 Table MB 1a: Age of women who gave birth, by Indigenous status, 2020 Table MB 1b: Age of Indigenous women who gave birth, 2010–2020 Table MB 2a: Duration of pregnancy at first antenatal care visit, by Indigenous status, 2020 Table MB 2b: Number of antenatal care visits among women who gave birth, by Indigenous status, 2020 Table MB 3a: Women who attended antenatal care in the first trimester, by Indigenous status, 2012–2020 Table MB 3b: Women who attended 5 or more antenatal care visits during pregnancy, by Indigenous status, 2012–2020 Table MB 4: Indigenous women who gave birth by whether they smoked tobacco during pregnancy, 2011–2020 Table MB 5a: Women who reported smoking during pregnancy, by age group and Indigenous status, 2019 Table MB 5b: Women who reported smoking during pregnancy, by remoteness and Indigenous status, 2019 Table MB 6: Gestational age at birth, by Indigenous status of mothers and babies, 2020 Table MB 7: Indigenous mothers who delivered pre-term babies, by self-reported smoking status of mothers, 2019 Table MB 8a: Birthweight of liveborn babies, by Indigenous status of mothers and babies, 2020 Table MB 8b: Birthweight of live born babies, born by Indigenous mothers, 2020 Table MB 9: Indigenous mothers who gave birth to low birthweight babies, by self-reported smoking status of mothers, 2019 Table MB 10: Liveborn babies by Apgar score at 5 minutes, by Indigenous status of mothers and babies, 2020 Table MB 11: Perinatal mortality rates, by Indigenous status of mothers and babies, 2010–2020
Children (CH)	Table CH 11a: School readiness among children on track on all 5 domains of the AEDC, by Indigenous status and state and territory, 2018, 2021 Table CH 11b: School readiness among children, by domain indicator and Indigenous status, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2021 Table CH 12: AEDC domains, by developmental categories and Indigenous status, 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2021 Table CH 13: School attendance rates among Indigenous students, by state and territory and year level, 2021 Table CH 14: Indigenous children who were at or above the national minimum standards for numeracy and literacy, by Year level and remoteness, 2021
Adolescents and youth (AY)	Table AY 2: Indigenous women who gave birth, by maternal age, 2020