The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes - 2021 - Health and Healthcare

The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) is Australia’s main source of data for the scientific study of the social attitudes, beliefs and opinions of Australians, how they change over time, and how they compare with other societies.

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The survey is used to help researchers better understand how Australians think and feel about their lives. It produces important information about the changing views and attitudes of Australians as we move through the 21st century. Similar surveys are run in other countries, so data from AuSSA survey also allows us to compare Australia with countries all over the world.

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AuSSA is also the Australian component of the International Social Survey Project (ISSP). The ISSP is a cross-national collaboration on surveys covering important topics. Each year, survey researchers in some 40 countries each do a national survey using the same questions. Here are some examples of surveys in other countries that are the equivalent to AuSSA:

 

The ISSP focuses on a special topic each year, repeating that topic from time to time. The topic for the upcoming 2021 survey is "Health and Healthcare". This is the second time this has been the topic of the survey, having previously been the theme for the survey in 2011.

 

​Data collection for the AuSSA 2021 is due to begin in May 2021, and due to complete in May 2022.

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How will participants be selected?

AuSSA aims to survey a representative sample of adult Australians. The fairest way of doing that is to draw a random sample from the Australian Electoral Roll. This means every Australian citizen has an equal chance of having their views included in the survey, and means that researchers are able to use statistical techniques to make inferences about Australian society overall on the basis of characteristics of the sample.

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We will randomly select at least 5000 citizens from the electoral roll. Each of them will be posted an explanatory letter, followed by a questionnaire booklet and reply paid envelope. Up to three reminder mailings will be sent for participants who do not return a booklet. We expect at least 1200 will return a completed questionnaire.

 

​Selected questions

Questions asked of respondents will include topics such as eHealth, attitudes towards vaccination, health equality/right to health care, trust and confidence in the health care system.

 

Contributing questions to the AuSSA 2021

 

Running a high quality, nationally representative survey requires the support of individual researchers willing to include their own questions in return for sponsorship of the survey. The fee will be $1,000 (exc GST) per question (i.e. per 'tick') for the full sample of 1200, or $400 to be included in any one of the 4 sub-samples. Please contact surveys@acspri.org.au for more information.

  1. The first wave of data collection is due to run in May 2021. Any contributed questions must be finalised by 2 April 2021.
  2. The second wave began data is due to run in August 2021. Any contributed questions must be finalised by 16 July 2021.
  3. The third wave of data collection is due to run in November 2021. Any contributed questions must be finalised by 15 October 2021.
  4. The fourth wave of data collection is due to run in February 2022. Any contributed questions must be finalised by 14 January 2022.

 

Access to results from AuSSA 2021

 

A summary (codebook) of the results from the AuSSA 2021 is available to view in your web browser

 

AuSSA data is available to the public via the Australian Data Archive

 

 

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For more information:

Tel. 1800 122 251 (free call)
Email: surveys@acspri.org.au