(1)        SOCIAL DISTRESS: low family income, rental stress, home purchase stress, lone person households.

(2)        HEALTH: low birth-weight, childhood injuries, immunisation, disability / sickness support, life expectancy, psychiatric patients: hospital / community, suicide.

(3)        COMMUNITY SAFETY: child maltreatment, criminal convictions, imprisonment, domestic violence.

(4)        ECONOMIC: unskilled workers, unemployment, long-term unemployment, dependency ratio, low mean taxable income, limited computer use / internet access.

(5)        EDUCATION: non-attendance at preschool, incomplete education, early school leaving, post-schooling qualifications.

(6)        COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: a range of Victorian community indicators.

Explained in 'Snapshot - Dropping Off the Edge', which under the authorship of Professor Tony Vinson, is a major new report which maps the distribution of Social Disadvantage throughout Australia. 

The full report "Dropping off the Edge" presents lists of localities that ranked highly on a 'disadvantage factor' within each Australia jurisdiction.  This comprehensive list and related data is available at AustralianDisadvantage.org.au

Information is presented for Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the ACT.  The same rankings pertaining to two jurisdictions with small numbers of localities (Tasmania and especially the Northern Territory) have also been incorporated in the full published report.

To avoid absolute rankings that could stigmatize some localities, the ‘score’ assigned to each socially disadvantaged locality ranges from -

*         ‘1’ (the 5% of places at the most disadvantaged end of the scale); to

*         ‘20’ (the 5% least disadvantaged).