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Health survey 'misleading'

08 Jan, 2010 01:13 PM
A QUEENSLAND Health survey is skewed, according to the Rural Doctors Association.

Queensland president Sheilagh Cronin said she would question the validity of the self-reported statistics, given they did not take into account the majority of Indigenous people, who make up about one fifth of the population in the Mount Isa district.

Queensland Health itself also freely admitted that their statistics, gathered at the start of last year, "seriously under represent[ed] indigenous adults and those in the most disadvantaged areas".

The government body said the statistics were slanted because a lot of the indigenous people did not have land lines, and the survey was done by phone.

Dr Cronin called for a review of the way Queensland Health gathered their statistical data.

"If you are really looking at drawing conclusions from these statistics they would be wrong," Dr Cronin said.

"If Queensland Health really wanted to get a true reflection of the district they should look at other ways of interviewing indigenous people including talking to patients who attended indigenous medical centres."

Queensland Health's Tropical Regional Services senior director Brad McCulloch did not rule out more research in the area.

"Queensland Health has done research into indigenous people and Torres Strait Islanders in the past, but there are other bodies that are currently doing that research which is why we chose not to this time," he said.

"There is actually a completely separate process to get data from this population which involve face to face surveys."

The health status statistics found that about 88 per cent of the sampled population believed they were in good health and 77 per cent were satisfied with their health.

Less than half the population said they were eating enough fruit and less than 10 per cent of people ate enough vegetables.

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