Research areas
The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health is a national research resource. It provides an evidence base to the Australian Government and other decision-making bodies within Australia for the development and evaluation of policy and practice in many areas of service delivery that affect women. For this reason, the Study takes a broad view of the factors impacting health and wellbeing. The women’s survey data is also linked to a range of state and national health datasets. The same women take the survey year after year, and their combined data builds a rich story about the complex physical, psychological, social, behavioural, and demographic factors that influence their health and use of healthcare services across the course of their lives.
Each survey includes the following research themes (as relevant to the cohort being surveyed):
- Chronic conditions
- Health service use and systems
- Reproductive health
- Mental health
- Weight, nutrition and physical activity
- Ageing
- Social factors in health and wellbeing
- Abuse
- Health in rural and remote areas
- Roles and relationships
- Tobacco, alcohol and other drugs
- Formal and informal paid and unpaid work patterns and family balance
- Caring
- Intergenerational issues
- Impact of natural disasters or pandemics such as bushfires and COVID-19