BackgroundAcross most high-income countries, populations are ageing. With this demographic change is an increase in the number of people living with disabilities. In this context, we sought to examine the prevalence of disability discrimination and disability avoidance in Australia, the demographic and health correlates of exclusion and the contexts in which disability discrimination and avoidance are experienced. Methods: Utilising newly released measures from the 2015 ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, we calculate the prevalence of people living with a disability who have experienced discrimination and engage in avoidance behaviours, and the contexts in which they occur. Logistic regression models were fitted to examine the correlates of discrimination and avoidance behaviours, once controls and complex survey design were accounted for.ResultsApproximately 9% (95% CI = 8.1, 9.2) of people with a disability experienced disability discrimination in 2015 and 31% (95% CI = 30.9, 32.9) engaged in avoidance behaviours because of their disability. With controls included, the prevalence of avoidance and discrimination declined with age, was higher for divorced people (versus married), the unemployed (versus employed) and was lower for people with lower levels of education (versus a degree) and those born overseas. Having a psychosocial or physical disability significantly increased the odds of experiencing discrimination or avoidance, as did having an increasing number of long-term health conditions. We further find that disability discrimination and avoidance occurs in contexts critical to human capital, such as the workforce, education and healthcare.ConclusionsDespite protections in legislation and international accords, significant proportions of Australians with a disability experience discrimination or engage in avoidance behaviours in various settings with potentially important human capital implications. Recently, sectoral responses (eg., in education and the workplace) have been offered by Government reports, providing direction for future research and evaluation.

Our study demonstrates the existence of disparity in patient presentation with complicated ventral hernia. Despite clear disparity by race and SES, at our institution, disparate presentation did not equate to disparate treatment or postoperative complications. No difference was demonstrated by use of operative technique, perioperative outcome, or 12-month recurrence rate. This study illustrates the need for long-term measures directed at reevaluation of organizational and institutional factors that perpetuate inequality.

Population ageing is profoundly challenging the institutions and systems that organise paid work, healthcare, and retirement. A major response to these challenges has been to encourage older workers to remain longer in employment, thereby extending the period of ‘productive life’ in which they are net contributors to government revenue. Yet this strategy depends on a range of micro‐level adjustments, about which relatively little is known. These include how willingly older workers and employers adjust their attitudes and practices, and what types of policies facilitate these adjustments. In this paper, we critique the major policy responses to workforce ageing in Australia to date, and consider further measures to improve recruitment and retention of older workers. We argue that a more holistic policy response will require better evidence about ageist employment barriers, late‐career transitions, and older workers’ job performance. We outline a research agenda to improve evidence and policy in these areas.

The quality of Australia's official suicide data is affected by various practices in data collection. This study provides a unique test of the accuracy of published suicide data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The Queensland Suicide Register's definition of suicide applies a more suicidological, or medical/health, conception of suicide, and applies different practices of coding suicide cases, timing of data collection processes, etc. The study shows that 'difference' between the two data sets predominates, and is statistically significant; thus the extent of the under-reporting of suicide is not trivial. Given that official suicide data are used for many purposes, including policy evaluation of suicide prevention programmes, it is suggested that the system used in Queensland should be adopted by the rest of Australia too.