The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework summary report provides the latest information on the health and welfare of Indigenous Australians, compiling key facts from the Health Performance Framework (HPF) measures.

In 2023, for the first time, the summary report has been released in a web report format to facilitate more regular updates. The previous summary report (published in PDF format in 2020) is available from Publications.

Since 2020, detailed HPF findings and data have been presented together on a dedicated website: indigenoushpf.gov.au. The website includes:

• comprehensive national and state and territory reporting
• supplementary data tables
• interactive data visualisations.

The measures also include sections on research and evaluations. These provide insights into aspects of health and service delivery that are not easily captured in administrative datasets, but can demonstrate characteristics of communities and services that are working well or need improvement.

In the future, feature articles will also be published on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework website to further explore insights from key data and research, exploring particular topics across HPF measures. The first feature article Key factors contributing to low birthweight among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies was released in May 2022. This feature article examines birthweight among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies, with a focus on identifying factors contributing to low birthweight. 

Terminology

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the Indigenous people of Australia. They are not one group, but comprise hundreds of groups that have their own distinct set of languages, histories and cultural traditions.

The term ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’ is preferred in AIHW publications when referring to the separate Indigenous peoples of Australia. In this report, the term ‘Indigenous Australians’ is used interchangeably with ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’.

See also Glossary.

Interpretation of results

Some results are restricted to states and territories where information on Indigenous status is considered of sufficient quality. This is noted throughout the report.

Given the differences in the age structure between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, age-standardised rates have been used in this report when comparing the two populations and when looking at change over time within the Indigenous Australian population. Where age-standardised rates have been used, this is stated in the relevant sections of the report.

Improvements in data quality and changes in Indigenous identification in several important datasets have a major bearing on the interpretation of the findings, and can impact the interpretation of changes in outcomes. This is particularly important for mortality data, the Census, and the population estimates derived from the Census that form the denominators for many of the statistics across datasets.

For more information, see Technical appendix.