Access Policy

Access to the information is granted to bona fide researchers in WA who meet the stringent requirements of ethics committee clearance. Strict protocols are followed to ensure confidentiality and security of linked data and as much as possible research is performed on de-identified data files. 

For details see: Data Access Policy 2007 (word format, 63kB).

Health Data Collections

The Health Data Collections Branch within Information Collection and Management (ICAM) Directorate manages and develops statewide centralised statistical data collections and registers for the WA Department of Health.

WA Data Custodian Contacts

Hospital Morbidity Data Collection documentation:

HMDC Reference Manual and other documents

HMDC Summary (pdf format, 242kB)

WA Death Registry documentation:

Mortality Summary (pdf format, 101kB)

Geographical Information

Data sources that incorporate address information can be assigned latitude and longitude, collector's district (CD), statistical local area (SLA), local government area (LGA) and radius values using purpose-built address parsing software linking to land-based reference datasets.

The Hospital Morbidity Data Collection, Midwives Notifications System and the WA Death Registrations are routinely geocoded for all records post 1993 using the 1996, 2001 and 2006 census boundaries.

Collector's District (CD) and SEIFA and ARIA values

A collector's district usually covers 200 households.

CD is usually not supplied on data extracts however we do offer the service of assigning 1996 and 2001 census SEIFA and/or ARIA values to post 1993 Hospital Morbidity Data Collection, Midwives Notifications System and the WA Death Registrations records at CD and SLA level. In most cases SLA, LGA and radius are supplied on data extracts where needed.

If CD is required  for geographic or environmental analysis a written explanation must be included in the linked data application.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provides more information on SEIFA:

1996 Socio-economic indexes for areas (SEIFA) information paper

2001 Socio-economic indexes for areas (SEIFA) information paper