The NHDH is a major national de-identified linked data system that draws together core government administrative health and aged care datasets. The NHDH also includes a demography dataset created by the AIHW based on information available from commonwealth, and state and territory data sources. The demography dataset includes confidentialised age, sex, and Indigenous status information for linked individuals across all datasets in the NHDH.

The NHDH comprises de-identified and enduring health data from state and territory, and Commonwealth data sources. It brings together data on admitted patient care services (in public and private hospitals), emergency department services and outpatient services in public hospitals for all states and territories with the exception of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The NHDH also includes:

- Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS)

- Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)

- Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS)

- Aged care services data

- National Death Index (NDI)

- National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)

- Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) data

- Australian Cancer Database (ACD)

- Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS)

- National Cancer Screening Register (NCSR)

For date ranges available for individual data collections, visit the NHDH website.

Emergency data, non-admitted patient care data, admitted patient care data and private hospitals data are not available for all states and territories. The data available in the NHDH covers the period of 1 January 1982 to 30 June 2024 and the available data range varies depending on the data source. A list of the data collections, the states/territories included and reference period is available here.

Facilitate person-based and longitudinal studies to support contemporary medical research, inform health and aged care services planning and policy development by government and non-government organisations, and monitoring of service delivery.

National; coverage varies by data collection.

AIHW Act 1987,
Privacy Act 1988
Australian Privacy Principles
Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 No 71 (NSW)
AIHW’s existing data governance arrangements (AIHW Data Governance Framework)
National Health Data Hub (NHDH) Governacne Protocols