- Title
- The accessibility/remoteness index of Australia (ARIA) and lifeline Australia's calls
- Creator
- Watson, Robert; McDonald, John; Pearce, Dora
- Date
- 2005
- Type
- Text; Conference paper
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/64302
- Identifier
- vital:1626
- Abstract
- Nationally there are more than 50 member centres and sub-centres of Lifeline Australia’s telephone counselling and referral service, providing an equitable, free, anonymous, and highly accessible primary health resource. The accessibility of this service may mean that it has a particularly important role to play in contributing to the health and well-being of rural and remote Australians. The trained volunteer counsellors of the service receive more than 400 000 calls annually. Information on many of these calls is recorded by telephone counsellors in Lifeline’s Client Service Management Information System (CSMIS). The purpose of this study was to establish if a relationship between the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) and calls to Lifeline Australia could be found. Population standardised areal call rates to Lifeline Ballarat were compiled using Telstra exchange service area to test the hypothesis that a positive relationship between the call rates to the service and the ARIA would be found. 90 128 CSMIS cases from 2003 were examined to explore if any linear relationship between caller characteristics and a centre’s ARIA score were apparent. A number of significant associations with the ARIA scores and CSMIS call variables were observed. However, the hypothesis that a positive relationship between call rates to the service and the ARIA would be found was not supported. An important implication of this exploratory study is that Lifeline’s telephone counselling and referral service may need to be promoted more widely to rural clients and health care providers.; E1
- Publisher
- Alice Springs : National Rural Health Alliance
- Relation
- Paper presented at the 8th National Rural Health Conference, Alice Springs : 10th - 13th March, 2005
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- Copyright National Rural Health Alliance
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- ARIA; Australia; Lifeline
- Full Text
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