I am an expert on community wellbeing, and recently assisted the ACT Government with their wellbeing indicator framework. Like most of my work, my approach is spatial, identifying and mapping wellbeing indicators for your community.
Some of these indicators come from surveys; some come from the ABS Census; and some will be modelled using my experience in small area demographic modelling. I then map these using online maps, shown below.
This is an example for Bega, on the South Coast where I have mapped modelled poverty rates (% people with equivalised disposable household income below 50% of the national median); and inequality (gini coefficient). Note that these are example data, taken from early work by my team at NATSEM and provided to the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). More recent poverty rates have been calculated by my team for NCOSS. The AURIN rates are used as an example to show the power of the online maps I use.
If you click on each area, it will give you the detail; and you can change what is displayed on the map in the top right corner.
Map of poverty and inequality, Bega LGA, 2016
Other indicators calculated using the model are unemployment rates; median income; housing stress; employment; occupation; education; etc. As outlined in the demographic modelling page, my approach creates a synthetic population for your area using the latest Census data from the ABS. This is then updated to today’s demographic profile using population projections, calculated using fertility, mortality and net migration. These can also be adjusted in consultation with your council. Incomes and housing costs are also updated using figures you are happy with, and then the indicators are calculated for each area in your council. The approach is highly consultative and flexible.