Story of Our Children and Young People

The Story of Our Children and Young People data platform provides more extensive information than presented in the paperback/eBook publication of the Story of Our Children and Young People, Northern Territory 2021.

This may result in minor differences between the data presented in the paperback/eBook version and the data presented in the data platform.

The reasons for these variations include:

• Population estimates vary slightly between different data sources. This will affect both the population counts as well as measures for which population estimates are used as a denominator.
• For some measures there are records with missing data for Aboriginal status, location or gender (when reported). Missing data is treated differently between the print version and the data platform:
  • In the paperback/eBook version, records with missing data are included at the level for which data is available with a note reporting missing data for other levels of reporting. For example, if a record does not have location data for a region, the item will be reported for the Northern Territory but excluded in the regional data.
  • The operation of the data platform requires consistency of data between levels of reporting. This requires exclusion of the small number of records with missing data for location, Aboriginal status or gender at all levels of reporting. For example, if a measure presents data by Aboriginal status then records with missing data for Aboriginal status are excluded from all levels of reporting for that measure.

A separate technical consideration is the need for care when publishing data with small counts due to the risk of confidentiality.

Data within cells with a count of less than 5 have been suppressed.

It is also necessary to suppress data in related cells which allow the calculation of the small number.

The suppression of cells with small counts has resulted in some cells being ‘not reportable’.

The presentation of information by sub-region and Aboriginal status in the data platform has resulted in an increase in the number of cells that are ‘not reportable’.

For further technical commentary on the data, read Appendix I on page 128 of the Story of Our Children and Young People, Northern Territory 2021.

Contact the team by email socialpolicy.cmc@nt.gov.au.