Abstract

This paper introduces a new data set on Australian natural disasters obtained from the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs’ Disaster Assist website (DisasterAssist.gov.au). Disaster Assist contains information on natural disasters declared by State and Territory governments under the Australian Government’s Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements. We discuss how this data can be linked to the restricted release of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) at the Local Government Area level. The association between survey respondent’s self-reports of their local area’s exposure to natural disasters, and administrative disaster declarations contained in Disaster Assist, is considered and the reasons for the modest strength of this association discussed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the key lessons for LSAC Data Users in using the linked LSAC-Disaster Assist data. 

File attachments