The accessibility/remoteness index of Australia (ARIA) and lifeline Australia's calls
- Watson, Robert, McDonald, John, Pearce, Dora
- Authors: Watson, Robert , McDonald, John , Pearce, Dora
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at the 8th National Rural Health Conference, Alice Springs : 10th - 13th March, 2005
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: 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.
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003001236
- Authors: Watson, Robert , McDonald, John , Pearce, Dora
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at the 8th National Rural Health Conference, Alice Springs : 10th - 13th March, 2005
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: 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.
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003001236
Areal call rates to a rural Lifeline centre
- Watson, Robert, McDonald, John, Pearce, Dora
- Authors: Watson, Robert , McDonald, John , Pearce, Dora
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at TASA '04 Refereed Conference Proceedings: Revisioning institutions: Change in the 21st century, Beechworth, Victoria : 8th November, 2004
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This study investigated the relationship between areal call rates to Lifeline Ballarat’s telephone counselling service and the Socio-economic Indexes for Australia. Successful calls for the period of January, February, March, and April 2002 (N=3767) were geospatially referenced to small areas. It was hypothesised that call rates would increase with greater socio-economic disadvantage as measured by the Socio-economic Indexes for Australia. Population adjusted call rates in each exchange service area in the study region were produced and their relationship with the corresponding Socio-economic Indexes for Australia scores were investigated. Significant correlations were observed for the call rate indicator, named the Lifeline Indicator of Social Need, and the Socio-economic Indexes for Australia advantage/disadvantage, disadvantage, and education/occupation indices. The results support Johnston’s (1979) finding of a relationship between socio-economic status of an area and local utilization of telephone counselling. The results support the idea that social factors such as the socio-economic climate of the area can have a significant association with seeking support from telephone counselling services such as the Lifeline service. An implication of the study may be that the calls to telephone counselling and referral centres could be used as a functional social indicator of the expressed need for psychosocial support or as a contributor to other social indices.
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003000971
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »