Mapping the health of South Australians

Tuesday, 11 July 2006

A report mapping the health status of the State's population and its relation to socio-economic status has been produced by the University of Adelaide's Public Health Information Development Unit.

Launched this week by Health Minister John Hill, the Social Health Atlas of South Australia shows a consistent pattern of poor health status in areas of greatest disadvantage.

The Atlas compares the 20% of the population considered the most disadvantaged and the 20% considered most advantaged. The Atlas was commissioned by the South Australian Department of Health.

This is the third edition of the Social Health Atlas. It allows comparisons between earlier editions in 1990 and 1996.

Atlas author John Glover, Director of the Public Health Information Development Unit (PHIDU), said: "Comparisons with the first edition show changes over the past 15 years for these indicators, emphasising the challenges the Government faces in extending the many improvements in health to the most disadvantaged sections of the community."

"The level of health and wellbeing of the South Australian population is high when compared with many overseas countries but these statistics hide substantial differences in the health and wellbeing of specific groups within the population."

The PHIDU has also launched a new interactive mapping facility on its website www.publichealth.gov.au which allows data from the Atlas and other reports to be quickly and easily presented in maps and graphs using software not previously used in Australia.

"This represents a major development in on-line presentation of data," said Mr Glover.

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