Examination of AOD Treatment Service Utilisation at the Statistical Area Levels

March 2017

As part of our program of work with the Adelaide and Country SA Primary Health Networks (PHN), NCETA is examining AOD treatment service utilisation at Statistical Area Levels 3 and 4 in South Australia to inform the development, provision and funding of needs- and evidence-based AOD services within each respective PHN geographical region. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines:

  • Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) – represent regions of between approximately 30,000 and 130,000 people. The SA3 boundaries reflect a combination of informal regions and existing administrative regions such as State Government Regions in rural areas and Local Government Areas in urban areas.
  • Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4) – generally have populations of over 100,000 people. They are the largest sub-State regions in the Australian Statistical Geography Standard and provide the best sub-State socio-economic breakdown.

In undertaking this work, NCETA is examining the following datasets:

  1. Alcohol and Drug Information Service (ADIS) informal contact data 2015
  2. South Australian Admitted Patient Activity (Hospital Separations) 2015-2016
  3. South Australia Health Emergency Department Data Collection (presentations) 2015-2016
  4. Alcohol and other Drug Treatment Services National Minimum Dataset (AODTS-NMDS) 2015-2016

NCETA will provide the South Australian PHNs with a summary report including a brief description of the datasets analysed, key findings describing patterns of AOD treatment service utilisation, and the implications for future AOD treatment service provision.