Development of a chronic disease risk factor index and identifying population subgroups at risk using New South Wales Population Health Survey 2002 data

Recent chronic disease prevention frameworks at both the national and state level in Australia have emphasised a transition from vertical, single-issue public health efforts to a more coordinated approach that targets clustered risk factors for chronic disease. An integrated approach to reducing modifiable risk factors requires the development of suitable performance measures that can be used to monitor the progress and effectiveness of combined efforts as well as to identify trends in the risk of population subgroups to assess progress in addressing health inequalities.NSW Health recently proposed the concept of a 'Dashboard of Indicators' to monitor health system performance and prevention activities. This study describes different methods of calculating an indicator of chronic disease risk using health behaviour measures from the NSW Adult Health Survey 2002, and explores the use of a summary indicator for identifying subgroups within the population at high risk of developing chronic disease