Submission to the National Primary Health Care Data Collection Governance Framework draft

The Collaborative welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) consultation on its draft Data Governance Framework.

We support the AIHW’s recognition of the importance of a working framework that will inform the robust governance of Australia’s primary health care data to be used in the best interest of all Australians. From here, we advocate for the explicit acknowledgement of the distinct needs of our culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, an established priority population, within the data governance framework.

As a nation valued for its cultural diversity, Australia holds a strong responsibility to ensure equitable outcomes across its entire population. With over half of Australians were born overseas or have a parent born overseas, and over 5.6 million people speak a language other than English at home, our CALD communities form a major part of this population. Yet, the poor health outcomes consistently observed for our multicultural communities directly reflects the lack of culturally informed data collection protocols required to develop timely and targeted health programs and practices. Preliminary analysis of the total Medical Research Future Fund and National Health and Medical Research Council awarded funding found less than 1% was dedicated to research that explicitly targets culturally and linguistically diverse population. If multicultural perspectives continue to lack deliberate representation, the data will remain incomplete in a health system that will only continue to entrench health inequities.

The Collaborative is providing input to support the AIHW’s aim to produce a secure governance foundation for the National Primary Health Care Data Collection (NPHCDC) that will support the collection of consistent data that is responsive to the community needs across diverse populations, including our multicultural communities. If the data governance framework fails to also represent Australia’s multicultural population explicitly, any data collection that follows will not support effective population health research, Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative policy, or planning. This submission draws on our system-level insights and our community partnership learnings to highlight inclusions that can strengthen the AIHW’s wider purpose to reach equitable health outcomes for all Australians.