  Extreme natural hazards are increasing in frequency and intensity. These
natural changes in our environment, combined with man-made pollution, have
substantial economic, social and health impacts globally. The impact of the
environment on human health (environmental health) is becoming well understood
in international research literature. However, there are significant barriers
to understanding key characteristics of this impact, related to substantial
data volumes, data access rights and the time required to compile and compare
data over regions and time. This study aims to reduce these barriers in
Australia by creating an open data repository of national environmental health
data and presenting a methodology for the production of health outcome-weighted
population vulnerability indices related to extreme heat, extreme cold and air
pollution at various temporal and geographical resolutions.
  Current state-of-the-art methods for the calculation of vulnerability indices
include equal weight percentile ranking and the use of principal component
analysis (PCA). The weighted vulnerability index methodology proposed in this
study offers an advantage over others in the literature by considering health
outcomes in the calculation process. The resulting vulnerability percentiles
more clearly align population sensitivity and adaptive capacity with health
risks. The temporal and spatial resolutions of the indices enable national
monitoring on a scale never before seen across Australia. Additionally, we show
that a weekly temporal resolution can be used to identify spikes in
vulnerability due to changes in relative national environmental exposure.
