Health Data Analysis

Detailed instructions for obtaining data
[DELETE THIS SECTION BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR COMPLETED ASSESSMENT.] 2019 HEALTH AND SOCIETY COHORT DATA
1. Download the 2019 Health & Society cohort data via the Portfolio Task 3: Short Answer Questions page, under the Assessments tab in the left-hand navigation on the course site.
2. Use the “calculations” sheet to perform the following steps. This will give you practice in creating your own tables. For the tables, feel free to copy or get ideas from the week 2 and 3 exercises (if you don’t have them with you, you can just open them up again from the course site).
3. In the “data” sheet, identify the variable that represents a current mental health condition.
4. In your “calculations” sheet, calculate the count (n) and prevalence (%) of a current mental health condition for males, females, and non-binary/gender diverse persons separately, and for the total cohort.
To do this, you will need to use the COUNTIFS formula that was used in Week 3. The COUNTIFS formula allows the calculation of counts where multiple conditions are met (e.g., having a current mental health condition AND being male).
The formula structure is as follows:
=countifs(range1,criteria1,range2,criteria2)
E.g., we want to calculate the number of males who have reported having a current mental health condition. To do this, we need to count the number of participants meeting both the criteria for being male (range = gender variable column, criteria = 1 (male)) and having a current mental health condition (range = mntlcurrent variable column, criteria = 1 (yes)):
=COUNTIFS(B2:B207,1,BF2:BF207,1)
5. Create a summary table in the “summary table” sheet, and enter the count and prevalence (%) of a current mental health condition for men, women, non-binary or gender diverse persons, and the total cohort, as well as the total count of 2019 Health and Society Student Health Survey participants.
ABS AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL HEALTH SURVEY – MENTAL HEALTH DATA
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) website contains a vast amount of data on a wide range of topics, including health and social factors. The following link will take you to the ABS website:
ABS website
1. Once you are in the ABS website, type “National Health Survey” into the search bar to get to the Australian National Health Survey section of the website.
2. Click on the link to: National Health Survey: First Results, 2017-18
3. You should also now see a link to further information on each of these conditions in the menu bar to the left of screen.
4. Click on the link to “Data Download”, then to ”Table 3. Long Term Health Conditions”.
5. In the downloaded excel spreadsheet, click “Table 3.1 Long-term health conditions, Persons (estimate) — Persons”. This section presents a summary of the prevalence of Long-term health conditions in Australia, for the period 2017-18.
6. Scroll down to the ‘Total mental and behavioural conditions’ section to obtain your data
HINT: The information/data you need is available in the following Sheets:
• ‘Table_3_1 Estimates, persons’, ‘Table_3_3 Proportions, persons’
• ‘Table_3_5 Estimates, males’, ‘Table_3_7 Proportions, males’,
• ‘Table_3_9 Estimates, females’, ‘Table_3_11 Proportions, females’.
7. Find and enter the total count (n) and proportion (%) of people aged 18 years and over who have reported any mental and/or behavioural condition for men, women, and the total population (aged 18 years and over) into your summary table alongside the 2019 Health and Society data.
NOTE: As the National Health Survey: First Results, 2017-18 does not contain specific data for non-binary and/or gender diverse persons who have reported any mental and/or behavioural condition, you will not need to include this information in your summary table (as blanked out on the template table).
Important notes:
The definition of mental health condition differs between the Health and Society data and the National Health Survey data. This is an important consideration when comparing results between the two surveys.
Also worth noting is the fact that the age and sex structure of each survey sample (the respondents) will be quite different. This may also impact on the differing results (remember when we talked about this earlier in the course?! Hopefully this is reminding you about the concept of standardisation).
 
MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS: HEALTH & SOCIETY VS THE NATION
Now that you have obtained the data on the prevalence of current mental health conditions in the various genders for both the Health and Society cohort and the Australian population (over 18 years of age) you will need to complete your Portfolio Task 3 assessment using the attached template, following these steps:
1. Complete the template summary table to present your data.
2. Create a graph presenting the female and male prevalence data for the Health and Society cohort, AND the Australian population.
NOTE: We are only focussing on the female and male prevalence data for the graph, as each of these variables are available in both datasets (ie non-binary/gender diverse specific data is not available in the National Health Survey data).
3. Based on the data presented in your table and graph, write a 200 word summary, describing your results and comparing prevalence across the two population groups and by gender.
Summary table
[Include your summary table here. The table below is an example of how you may format and present your data. You may edit/adjust the formatting if you wish. Remember to include an appropriate title for your table.] Table 1. Include table title here.
2019 Health and Society cohort ABS Australian National Health Survey
Number of people with condition Proportion (%) Number of people with condition (‘000 units) Proportion (%)
Gender Male
Female
Non-binary/gender diverse
Total

Summary graph
[Include your summary graph here. You will need to create your graph in Microsoft Excel, but you must present it here. Remember to include an appropriate title for you graph.]

Describe and compare
[Describe and comparing the 2019 Health and Society data with the ABS National Health Survey data for the prevalence of mental health conditions for men, women, non-binary and/or gender diverse, and the total population. Your summary should include a description of the similarities and differences between the Health and Society data and the Australian data. This section should be 200 words (±10%).]