National Best Practice Guidelines for Indigenous Data Linkage Activities Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People [electronic Resource]

"In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a set of targets for 'Closing the Gap' in disadvantage between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians. Currently, progress is difficult to measure accurately because Indigenous status is either missing or inconsistently reported across data sets. Data linkage has been identified as a potential way to improve reporting against the COAG targets. To ensure a consistent approach, COAG directed the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to develop national best practice guidelines for linking data related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This report offers guidance on how to derive Indigenous status when it is missing or inconsistently reported, and covers guidelines in areas such as: values and ethics in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research; quality of Indigenous status information in data collections; quality of linkage variables; assessment of quality of data linkage; methods for deriving Indigenous status; and transparency."--Book jacket.