Amid a rush to buy cheaper housing in Ballarat, a long calling card for the city, disposable income for residents after paying the mortgage or rent is more than 18 per cent lower than the Victorian average.

When it comes to health of young people, Ballarat is over-represented within the state and nationwide for those aged 15-24 in long-term conditions including arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, kidney and lung diseases. The rate of Ballarat people aged 25-34 experiencing mental ill-health is 69 per cent higher than average Australian the same age.

Vital Signs, to be released today, is the most comprehensive snapshot of this city in more than a decade.

The Ballarat Foundation led the report in a bid to find "starting points" to change and for greater collaboration and supports across the region, particularly in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

Foundation chief executive officer Andrew Eales made clear the findings were not a critique on the incredible work organisations and community leaders were undertaking in welfare spaces.

Mr Eales said the report, while confronting, aimed to spark discussion and provide evidence to support decision-making.

"We're looking at positive social change in the community and we have a broad data set across different sectors and industry," Mr Eales said.

"It's impossible to have every set of data we need, but we've got to start somewhere. Vital Signs is an independent way of creating conversations in ensuring no-one is left behind."

Data will be continually updated and expanded in the Vital Signs project in a bid to provide a fuller picture to drive change.

Mr Eales said verified insights, backed by Seer Data and Analytics, had helped drive great grassroots change in other regional areas. This included an Aboriginal community in Bourke in employing a wrap-around support approach to prevent criminal behaviour.

This Vital Signs project, he said, was about understanding the "pulse" of Ballarat for what could be next.

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Mr Eales said mental health was a well documented issue in Ballarat, even more so in the wake of COVID-19 lockdown challenges and the loss of lives to suicide.

While there were a raft of government programs and charities responding to mental health, Mr Eales said the data picture offered a chance to consider more targeted collaborations.

"What we know is Ballarat and regional Australia has a rate of suicide and high levels of mental health challenges far greater than the national average. We need to respond by asking are the systems and processes in place working," Mr Eales said.

"If these systems are working, we can ask how we can supercharge a response...We hope to develop strategies as a community."

The Ballarat Foundation has issued a call to action on social service organisations to help contribute to the data and to use data to support grant applications for change.

The Foundation will continue to provide community impact grants, partner with local organisations and advocate for government resources to best meet Ballarat needs.

Mr Eales said some of this would mean shifting perceptions on Ballarat for considering future needs, for example, cost of living pressures.

"...When you compare wages and houses to buy or houses to rent, both lots of people in Ballarat have less money left than the state and Australian average," Mr Eales said.

"That has been part of the calling card for Ballarat - it's a cheaper place to buy houses than compared to a city like Melbourne, and we saw this in the pandemic.

"The real challenge is if wages don't keep up with mortgages and rent, that creates disadvantage. That's large pockets of the community below the national average in cost of living.

"I think that's cause for reflection. We need to consider are we going to become a commuter community or, in the new work of working from home, a place for people to hold higher paid jobs elsewhere.

"We need to be mindful of the development in industry created here in the future and opportunities for people who live here. The last thing we want is to be constantly lifting people up because social welfare is not enough.

"We need to understand the context about housing that cheap housing is not necessarily always a good thing."

The Ballarat Foundation was confident the platform allow for frequently refreshed data, rigorously tested by Seer, rather than waiting long periods such as for census data to produce new reports.

Vital Signs will go live on The Ballarat Foundation's website on Friday at 10am.

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