The initial Audit of Disability Research in Australia was published online in July 2014, and included
scientific and grey literature, government and non-government research reports. The current Audit
of Disability Research in Australia Update Report 2017, hereafter referred to Audit Update 2017 was
commissioned by National Disability Services (NDS), from a funding grant offered under the National
Disability Research and Development Agenda, in June 2017 and undertaken by the Centre for
Disability Research and Policy (CDRP) at the University of Sydney. The Audit Update 2017, used the
same methods as previously, with minor modifications to align with the Centre for Applied Disability
Research (CADR) Clearing House protocol. The Audit Update 2017 addressed disability research from
Australia in the scientific literature between mid-2013 and mid-2017, and research reports from the
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), and the
Productivity Commission (PC).
The major differences between the reports from 2014 to 2017 are:
The major differences in the time period between the initial 2014 Audit and the current Audit
Update 2017 are as follows:
• The majority of studies are in the domain of Education rather than Health and Wellbeing as
in the 2014 Audit
• The three most written about domains are Education, Economic Participation, and Social
Relationships in contrast to Health and Wellbeing, Education, and Economic Participation in
the 2014 Audit
• The research designs utilised in the Audit Update 2017 were markedly similar to those in the
2014 Audit. The most frequently appearing were qualitative studies and observational
studies with the least frequently occurring study protocol only, historical analysis and
media/ creative arts/ cultural analysis. In the 2014 Audit, most frequently occurring study
designs were observational studies and qualitative studies with the least frequently
occurring study protocol only, systematic review, historical analysis and randomised
controlled trials (RCTs)
• There has been an increase in the number of studies employing designs with larger samples
more likely to be representative and permitting comparison of the circumstances of people
with disability with those of their non-disabled peers, however taken together these designs
only accounted for just under 1/10th of all studies.
Further information
https://credh.org.au/reports-and-submissions
Funding
NHMRC centre of research excellence in disability and health