Australian Health and Geographic Data (AHGD)

Dataset Description

The Australian Health and Geographic Data (AHGD) dataset provides comprehensive health, demographic, and environmental indicators at the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) geography across Australia. This dataset integrates multiple authoritative Australian data sources to enable health geography research, policy analysis, and machine learning applications.

Dataset Summary

• Geographic Coverage: Australian SA2 statistical areas
• Temporal Coverage: 2021 reference year
• Data Sources: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Bureau of Meteorology (BOM)
• Total Records: 12
• Format Availability: parquet, csv, json, geojson

Supported Tasks

• Health geography analysis
• Spatial epidemiology research
• Environmental health studies
• Social determinants of health research
• Machine learning for health prediction
• Policy impact assessment

Languages

English (Australian spelling and terminology)

Dataset Structure

Data Instances

Each record represents a Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) with associated health, demographic, and environmental indicators.

Data Fields

Key data fields include:

• Geographic identifiers: SA2, SA3, SA4 codes and names
• Health indicators: Life expectancy, chronic disease prevalence, health service utilisation
• Environmental data: Temperature, rainfall, air quality measures
• Socioeconomic indicators: SEIFA indices, employment rates
• Demographic characteristics: Population, age structure, cultural diversity

Data Splits

This dataset does not have predefined train/validation/test splits as it represents cross-sectional geographic data.

Dataset Creation

Curation Rationale

This dataset was created to support health geography research and policy analysis in Australia by providing integrated, high-quality data at meaningful geographic scales.

Source Data

Initial Data Collection and Normalisation

Data is sourced from:

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW): Health indicators and outcomes
2. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS): Geographic boundaries and demographic data
3. Bureau of Meteorology (BOM): Climate and environmental data

Who are the source language producers?

Australian government agencies producing official statistics and health data.

Annotations

Annotation process

Data undergoes comprehensive validation including:

• Geographic boundary verification
• Statistical outlier detection
• Data quality scoring
• Cross-source consistency checking

Who are the annotators?

Automated validation systems with expert review by health geography researchers.

Personal and Sensitive Information

This dataset contains only aggregated, de-identified data at the SA2 level. No individual-level information is included.

Considerations for Using the Data

Social Impact of Dataset

This dataset can support:

• Evidence-based health policy development
• Resource allocation decisions
• Health inequity identification
• Environmental health research

Discussion of Biases

Users should be aware of:

• Potential underrepresentation in remote areas
• Temporal lag between data collection and availability
• Varying data quality across geographic regions

Other Known Limitations

• Data currency varies by indicator
• Some regional areas may have suppressed values due to privacy requirements
• Climate data interpolation may introduce spatial uncertainty

Additional Information

Dataset Curators

Australian Health and Geographic Data (AHGD) Project Team

Licensing Information

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Citation Information

@dataset{ahgd2024,
  title={Australian Health and Geographic Data (AHGD)},
  author={AHGD Project Team},
  year={2024},
  publisher={Hugging Face},
  url={https://huggingface.co/datasets/ahgd/australian-health-geographic-data}
}

Contributions

Thanks to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australian Bureau of Statistics, and Bureau of Meteorology for providing the underlying data sources.

Dataset Deployment Information

• Deployed: 2025-06-24 13:16:49 UTC
• Version: 1.0.0
• Repository: massomo/ahgd
• Formats Available: Parquet, CSV, JSON, GeoJSON
• Size: ~27KB total
• Records: 3 SA2 areas (demonstration dataset)

Usage Analytics

This dataset includes built-in usage tracking to help improve data quality and understand usage patterns. No personal information is collected.

Quick Start

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load the dataset
dataset = load_dataset("massomo/ahgd")

# Access different formats
parquet_data = dataset['train'].to_pandas()

Monitoring and Support

For issues, feedback, or feature requests:

• Create an issue on the repository
• Contact the maintainers through Hugging Face
• Check the usage documentation for common questions

Last updated: 2025-06-24