The Breaking Down Barriers community reports provide key characteristics and insights into Australian communities using data curated within the Breaking Down Barriers Shared Data Environment.
Community Profiles is an interactive data visualisation tool that showcases the data curated within
the Breaking Down Barriers Shared Data Environment, intended to inform economic and social policy to
eliminate poverty and disadvantage in Australia. A Community Profile provides users a view of the
communities in a region, their demographic characteristics and how they compare to each other, the
state, and the nation. Community Profiles also provide a view of trends in socio-economic
characteristics since 2006. The Breaking Down Barriers Community Profiles initiative will see
continuous improvements with the inclusion of new data, new visualisations, and new insights to
support changing needs from its user base.
This version of the Breaking Down Barriers Community Profiles was last updated in September 2023.
How to use the tool
To begin, please use the interactive map of Australia below. You can begin by selecting a region to
view its Community Profile. Each region contains additional commentary provided by Melbourne
Institute researchers and analysts.
For more information on how the data was constructed, please refer the Methodology section.
Methodology
The Breaking Down Barries Community Profiles are derived from data held within the Breaking Down Barriers Shared Data Environment. Data are available at both Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) and Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) geographical levels as defined in the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS 2021). Where data is available at a unit level deeper than SA2/SA3, these data are analysed within the secure data environment an aggregated up to a level appropriate for inclusion in a community profile. Each community profile is defined by the broader SA3 region definition and contains information on the SA2 areas within it. Of 358 unique SA3 regions defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics across Australia (in 2021), we provide profiles for 338 SA3 regions after excluding special purpose codes (where address data are coded to non-spatial values due to incomplete location information on Census night), and regions with low population counts (under 100 families in a SA2 area). SA2 areas are defined to broadly represent a community that interacts together socially and economically. Community-level poverty data and region-specific demographic information, measures on education status, employment, and primary residence characteristics are derived from information in the Breaking Down Barriers Community-level Poverty Dataset. This dataset uses measures captured in Australian Censuses from 2006 to the latest Census in 2021 and derives community-level poverty ratios using income data for Australian households. For more information on the design and construction of these data, please see Payne and Samarage (2020). The Breaking Down Barriers Community Profiles initiative will see continuous improvements with the inclusion of new data, new visualisations, and new insights to support changing needs from its user base.
Project credits
This feature was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in these reports are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute, or its funders.
Principal investigator:
A. Abigail Payne
Data design and development:
Maxim Ananyev, A. Abigail Payne and Rajeev Samarage
Analysis lead:
Maxim Ananyev
Community analyses:
Maxim Ananyev, Harshita Bhatia, Taylor Ey, Daniel Fischer, Tanya Gupta, Yashu Kalera, Ujjwal KC,
Chenhao Liang,
Kristin Marriner, Rajeev Samarage, Shirin Tejani, Shrey Varshney and Yuchen Zhong
Data visualisation design and development:
Ujjwal KC and Rajeev Samarage
Suggested citation
Ananyev, M., KC, U., Payne, A.A. and Samarage, C.R. (2023) Breaking Down Barriers Community Profiles, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne. Data visualisation. https://bdbprofiles.melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/
© Copyright 2023 Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne.