Health care surveys of Gosford-Wyong and Illawarra regions, New South Wales, 1975

These surveys aimed to provide information which would assist with the monitoring, evaluation and planning of health services. They were concerned with measuring actual morbidity, perceived health, access to health care and attitudes to existing health care, particularly emergency services, in the population. Information was collected on recent illness (complaints and conditions experienced in last two weeks), chronic illness and emotional health (as measured by the General Health Questionnaire). Utilisation questions included health care attitudes, social contact, support and participation, life events, child health, use of doctors, use of dentists, use of medicines, use of hospitals, use of emergency services and use of maternal and baby health services. Medications investigated included pain relievers, cough and cold remedies, allergy medication, skin ointments or salves (not cosmetics), laxatives, tranquillisers and other 'nerve' tablets, sleeping pills, vitamins or tonics, heart or blood pressure tablets, birth control pills and others as nominated by the respondent. Respondents were questioned concerning whether they had used any of these in the last two days, how many different types of each and whether they were prescribed. Background variables included age, sex, marital status, geographical area, country of birth, duration of residence in Australia, household and family composition, duration of residence in locality, major activity, occupational group, educational status, income (derived from Henderson poverty index), commuter status and health insurance.

The data are held in eight files, four for adults and four for children, with separate files for each sex and region. File names refer to Illawarra women (iaf); Gosford-Wyong women (gaf); Illawarra men (iam); Gosford-Wyong men (gam); Illawarra girls (icf); Gosford-Wyong girls (gcf); Illawarra boys (icm); Gosford-Wyong boys (gcm).