Generalist Telephone Counselling and Social Indicators

This doctoral project investigates the potential for call data from Lifeline – a generalist telephone counselling and referral service in Australia – to be used as valid and reliable social indicators of health. It presents a detailed descriptive summary and analysis of Lifeline''s national call data. The work presents a model of generalist telephone counselling and referral use and a new indicator of social need, which is proposed to reflect a community''s capacity to provide social support to some of its most socially isolated residents.