Safety in the Home, Queensland

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    NAME OF ORGANISATION
    Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

    OVERVIEW
    Injury control is one of the priority areas endorsed for action by the Australian Health Ministers, and in Queensland injury is a major cause of preventable death. It has now risen to the fourth largest killer of Queenslanders in 1998, accounting for 6.5% of total deaths and representing the principal cause of death for those aged 1 to 44 years. It is estimated that around 44% of injuries occur in the home environment, with children being particularly susceptible to injury where around 75% of injuries in the 0 to 5 age group occur in the home.

    A Home Safety State Supplementary Survey was run for the State Government, in particular Queensland Health in 1996 to help the department understand more about the prevalence of injury risk factors overall in Queensland and also in sub-groups in the community. This information better enables the department to run targetted awareness campaigns and allow its network of health promotion co-ordinators to develop other intervention/prevention strategies and projects.

    PURPOSE
    This survey is intended to collect data on a range of household risk factors, particularly for children aged 0-4 years and persons aged 60 and over. Information is collected on risk factors (such as internal and external stairs; types of home playground equipment and surfaces below the equipment. Also included is information on safety devices (such as hand rails; non-slip surfaces; smoke detectors and temperature controlling devices for hot water systems). Data on swimming pool ownership, first aid training and home ownership will also be provided.

    Queensland Health will use the data in a similar way to the 1996 survey but also to monitor trends over time in this important area of death and injury prevention.

    SCOPE

    The scope of the collection includes all usual residents of private dwellings except:

    • members of the permanent defence forces;
    • certain diplomatic personnel of overseas governments, customarily excluded from censuses and surveys;
    • overseas residents in Australia; and
    • members of non-australian defence forces (and their dependents) stationed in Australia.

    Residents of non-private dwellings such as hospitals, motels and goals were excluded from this survey.

    COVERAGE

    For the survey, coverage rules of the Labour Force Survey were applied which aimed to ensure that each person was associated with only one dwelling, and hence had only one chance of selection in the survey. The chance of a person being enumerated at two separate dwellings in the one survey is considered to be negligible.
    Persons who are away from their usual residence for 6 weeks or less at the time of interview are enumerated at their usual residence (relevant information may be obtained from other usual residents present at the time of the survey.

    DATA DETAIL

    Conceptual framework
    The survey uses the Monthly Population Survey sample frame. Questions are designed to elicit information on home safety issues.

    The target population is all persons living in private dwellings in Queensland. ( one schedule per household), especially

    • Households with older residents/older visitors, living in private dwellings; and
    • Households with young children/young visitors, living in private dwellings

    Main outputs
    ABS Catalogue Number 4387.3 'Safety in the Home, Queensland'

    The principal data items involve safety issues regarding:
    • older people;
    • slippery surfaces;
    • steps and stairs;
    • children;
    • smoke detectors;
    • swimming pools;
    • hot water thermostats; and
    • first aid training

    plus
    • standard labour force items;
    • dwelling type; and
    • dwelling tenure.

    Classifications
    Existing classifications: dwelling type, dwelling tenure, age group, sex, part of State

    Other concepts (summary)


    GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
    Queensland

    Comments and/or Other Regions


    COLLECTION FREQUENCY
    Once Only

    Frequency comments
    This State Supplementary Survey is a repeat of the 1996 topic but there are no plans for it to be repeated in the future at this stage.

    COLLECTION HISTORY
    This is a repeat of the 1996 topic for the Queensland State Supplementary Survey.

    DATA AVAILABILITY
    Yes

    Data availability comments



    DATE OF LAST UPDATE FOR THIS DOCUMENT
    27/05/2002 12:41 PM