Final Report on RREF 2001 - Department of Health

Part B: Development of Options for a Revised RREF
Notwithstanding these reservations, participants in consultations and those who made
submissions accepted that the DACS might still be the best available data and hence remain the
appropriate starting point. The Review team’s investigations confirmed this view. Whilst a
number of other studies of disability and service use were referred to through the consultation
process, analysis by the consultants confirmed that none of them capture the total population of
both users of services and those who do not currently access services as well as the DACS does.
The DACS has a number of strengths that make it the most robust and best available data. No
other data source was identified that could compare with the DACS on the following grounds:
• it has the same high technical standards as the Census and other ABS Surveys.
• it is population based, that is, it is collected from a sample of over 37,000 people in
the community;
• the sample covers the total population, and so is not restricted to just those who
have been assessed or who are receiving services;
• the DACS is widely used in planning of services for individuals with on-going and
relatively stable disabilities and chronic health problems;
• it is updated every five years;
• comparisons between the DACS and other available data sources (including
Centrelink DSP Data) have found close agreement; and
• the DACS collects data from personal interviews with younger people with
disabilities, frail aged people and their carers and so captures consumer views.
1.2 PREVALENCE OF CORE ACTIVITY RESTRICTION
The term core activity restriction or handicap is used throughout this <strong>Report</strong> as technical terms
as used in the ABS surveys. A distinction is first made between impairment, disability and
handicap, and then moderate, severe and profound levels of handicap or restriction are
determined. These definitions are set out in Appendix 2.
The DACS provides both a statewide rate of disability and regional rates. The reliability of the
regional rates is however far lower, and restricts the rates to only two age groups, under 70 and
over 70. These limitations pose major difficulties when differences in age structure between
LGAs, and changes in age structure over time, are significant factors in determining the size of
the base populations for the RREF.
These limitations could only be fully overcome if data on the prevalence of different levels of
handicap, by age group, was available at the LGA level. It is precisely because such data are
not available that a range of other factors have to be taken into account in the RREF as
indicators of need. These indicators developed using LGA level data and are applied to the base
population calculated for each LGA, and more accurate initial RREF base populations can be
calculated using the statewide prevalence for each five year age group for the total population
than by using regional prevalence’s that are available for two very broad age groups.
Continuing development of the DACS survey and other measures of prevalence of disability
may provide alternative measures in the future.
<strong>Final</strong> <strong>Report</strong> July 2001 17