1. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
The Index:
A model for access to women’s
health and wellbeing data
ROSE DUREY
Senior Policy Officer, Women’s Health Victoria
2. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
www.theindex.org.au
• Online gateway to Victorian women’s health
and wellbeing data
• Contains summary information on external
reports and surveys
• Links you directly to the external website to
access the original report or data
3. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
OVERVIEW
• History
• Principles
• What it contains
• Using the site
• The Index as a model
4. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
HISTORY OF THE INDEX
• 2004 – Victorian Gendered Data Directory
• The Source – British Columbia Centre for
Excellence in Women’s Health
• 2007 – grant from Helen MacPherson
Smith Trust
• 2008 – launch of The Index
5. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
PRINCIPLES UNDERPINNING THE INDEX
• Health and wellbeing is influenced by a range of factors
including gender – social determinants
• Women and men experience health differently
• Policies, programs and services that address these
differences are the most effective
• Sex disaggregated data is the first step in developing
gender sensitive responses
6. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
WHAT IS ON THE INDEX?
Data sources are:
– Sex disaggregated
– Quantitative
– Victorian, but where this isn’t possible, sex disaggregated data
at the national level is included
– Diversity lenses:
– Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women
– Women with disabilities
– Same-sex attracted women
– Culturally and linguistically diverse women
– Sexual diversity
7. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
Data sources are:
– Freely available online resources
– Regularly updated
– Come from various external websites including:
– Federal and state government departments and institutes
– University research departments
– Non-government organisations
– Independent research bodies
– Academic publications
8. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
12 categories of health and wellbeing
Demographics &
diversity
Health Health behaviours
Healthcare
accessibility
Mental health &
wellbeing
Sexual and
reproductive health
Violence & safety Care relationships Community
connectedness
Education Economic &
employment
conditions
Living arrangements
14. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
• Current focus is on
Victoria, but users
are from around
Australia
• Model can be
adapted to other
regions
15. URL: http://www.whv.org.au Email: whv@whv.org.au Phone: 9662 3755
www.theindex.org.au
• One, unique location
• Impact of gender on health and wellbeing
made clearer
• Leads to better health outcomes
Intro –
Women's Health Victoria is a statewide women’s health promotion, information and advocacy service.
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Today I am going to talk to you about The Index, a website that Women’s Health Victoria has developed as a gateway to women’s health and wellbeing data in Victoria.
It contains summary information on external reports and surveys, or data sources, and it links you directly to the original source.
It is a practical tool to assist policy makers, researchers, planners, service providers and others to access sex-disaggregated data – where data on women and men is presented separately. This makes taking a gender sensitive approach as easy as possible.
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In 2004, Women's Health Victoria published the Victorian Gendered Data Directory. It was a collation of sources that provided data on women in Victoria against 70 indicators of health and wellbeing. Was the first of its kind, but it was a hard copy therefore unwieldy for sources on the internet. We needed to house the Directory online.
The British Columbia Centre for Excellence in Women’s Health in Canada talked to us about the Gendered Data Directory and from there, developed their website The Source: www.womenshealthdata.ca. We liaised with them to learn from what they had done to develop their website and in 2007, Women’s Health Victoria received a grant from the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust to develop The Index. The launch in July 2008 followed an extensive development process that was informed by a range of advisors.
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The Index uses a social determinants model of health – it draws on the key determinants that influence broader patterns of health and illness.
What we know is that women and men experience health differently and a gender sensitive response will take this into account in the design of policies and programs.
Sex disaggregated data is the first step in developing a gender sensitive response. We can see how an issue might affect or impact on women and men in different ways. This is where The Index comes in.
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The criteria we use…
Sex disaggregated – we upload the data sources or statistical reports that contain information about women – inevitably that means there will also be information about men too.
Quantitative – that is, data that is about numbers and statistics. The Index does not contain qualitative data (non-numerical – observations, perceptions, attitudes etc) – qualitative data is found in the Women’s Health Victoria Clearinghouse.
Victorian data – because Women’s Health Victoria is funded to provide services in Victoria, although much of the information is national, and users are from around Australia.
Diversity lenses are another way of searching for the information.
All this makes it easy to access the specific data you need.
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Other criteria for what we put on The Index…
Regularly updated with new sources or the updated versions of statistical reports.
The data sources have been grouped into 12 categories of health and wellbeing which reflect a social model of health.
Each of these categories then has a number of sub-categories that the data sources are divided into – for example, mental health and wellbeing contains the separate areas of body image; mental health and illness; self harm; and stress.
We have hundreds of different data sources so this makes it clear and easy to find the information that you need.
One data source or report could fall into a number of different categories and they will be listed under each relevant category.
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This is the homepage of The Index – www.theindex.org.au
You can see that the left hand side has a list of categories. You can click on these and browse the categories. For example, I know that Violence and Safety, has two sub-categories – Violence Against Women and Women Offenders. If we were to click on the Violence and Safety category, you’ll see….
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…a snapshot about the topic and some key stats.
Also on this page on the left hand side again are the subcategories – Violence Against Women and Women Offenders. Each contains relevant statistics and reports on these issues.
So, I might be looking for information on Australian women prisoners. If we click on, for example, the second one of these – Women Offenders….
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16 items or data sources in this subcategory – these are just the first two on this page.
You will see a list of data sources that contains information about Women Offenders. For each data source, you can either go straight to the source of the information (point) or look at a brief description of what’s in them so you don’t have to download the whole thing to find out that it’s what you’re after.
Let’s look at the first one – the Prisoners in Australia report from the ABS. And you can do this by clicking the ‘Further Info’ icon…..
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You will come to a table like this which gives an overview of what information the data source does and does not contain. From this page you can also go straight the data source if that’s what you’re after.
This page also gives you information about the level of detail contained in the report and the different lenses that you can search for information using. It’s a timesaver because we’ve done the hard work, so as a user of The Index, I don’t have to spend time trying to find what I need on the ABS website or waiting for a huge document to download.
(eg: statewide/regional data etc – Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women)
You can also see the types of diversity lenses that we have applied – so you can see at a glance whether it has the information you need, eg:…
I will show you the ‘Advanced Search’ feature so you can see how these lenses work and how I might search for this information.
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This ‘Advanced Search’ feature has been designed specifically for the different data source criteria within The Index, including the diversity lens data.
Eg:…
You can search for the specific information that you need by ticking the different diversity lenses, or if you only need national data or local government data, this is what you can tick.
It is a really useful way of narrowing down your searches, but The Index can be browsed using the categories as well.
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The Index is a really exciting model for centrally locating sex disaggregated data. It could easily be developed for national application, and is a useful way of situating localised data in one place, so for a state or local level.
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The Index is important because it facilitates the use of sex-disaggregated data. It makes it easy to find data on Victorian women in one, unique location. The means that the impact of gender on health and wellbeing is clearer.
The Index assists those working in policy development, planning, research and service provision to consider women and gender. This results in a more detailed picture of Victorian women’s lives and better health outcomes for all both women and men.
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Women’s Health Victoria has a stand in the conference hall with a laptop, so if you would like to browse The Index, please do.