Dear Heduanna,

I finally get the point that you are making.

Have you contacted the Library at the Department of Human Services
at all, or even the reference staff at your national library?

Library staff are usually great at helping with resources or at least pointing you in the right direction for the type of information that you're looking for.

Good Luck.

Good suggestion Foxy, thanks. I'll check it out. I agree with you about library staff. They are absolute treasures and I have not met an exception yet.

Heduanna, good causes using distorted stats or misleading representations is one of my pet hates. If nothing else it makes it harder for me to trust what I'm told by those using them.

It will be interesting to see if you can find anything about life expectancy for the lowest socio/economic groupings in Australia. I've seen some summary comments about that previously but don't recall where.

R0bert

Yes, RObert, I know what you mean. This practice is a double betrayal. It is a betrayal for the general public who are being presented with the issue because, apart from the fundamental issue of honesty, we tend to subconsciously equate integrity with doing good. The distorted or misleading use of statistics or other 'evidence’ is also a betrayal for the people those groups represent because it is likely to result in lack of support for their cause.

I have taken up Foxy’s suggestion and contacted a librarian who is generously doing some research on stats in the low socio economic groups and will get back to me although it might take a couple of weeks. The OLO forum administrator might also turn something up.

In relation to our previous discussion on comparing life expectancy of Aboriginal Australians with non-Aboriginal Australians in the same socio economic group I have received some information from a research librarian. (She actually got back to me very promptly but I have been too busy to investigate what she sent me until now.) Unfortunately we have not been able to find stats for life expectancy of non-Aboriginal Australians in the low socio economic group.

There are stats for Victorians who reside in local government areas classified as disadvantaged areas but that is not an accurate comparison.

These are the links sent to me:

http://www.health.vic.gov.au/healthstatus/le-01-05.htm

http://mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/phb/may01html/socioecomay01.html

There is also a book held here at the State Library of Victoria: Health inequalities in Australia : mortality, by Glenn Draper (Canberra : Australian Institute Health and Welfare, 2004) which includes a section on “Mortality differences by socioeconomic disadvantage” (pp.xix – xxii). (I have not yet had an opportunity to look at this book.)