Generalist Telephone Counselling and Social IndicatorsPaperback, 16 September 2010

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.