Notes on the data: Aboriginal premature mortality by sex

Deaths of Aboriginal people aged 0 to 54, 0 to 64, 0 to 74 years, 2018 to 2022

Policy context: Deaths before 75 years of age can be classified as ‘premature’. However, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a higher proportion of deaths occurs before 75 years of age, 76.7% compared with 33.4% for the total population (i.e., including Aboriginal people); as a result we have included data for deaths before 65 years and before 55 years.

External causes of death (largely road traffic injuries and suicide and self-inflected injuries) and chronic diseases are responsible for a majority of the premature deaths among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: details here.

Reference

PHIDU (www.phidu.torrens.edu.au), based on Cause of Death Unit Record Files supplied by the Australian Coordinating Registry and the Victorian Department of Justice, on behalf of the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System; 2018 to 2022.

Notes:

Deaths data

For deaths data released since 2007, the ABS has applied a staged approach to the coding of cause of death which affects the number of records available for release at any date. In general, the latest year’s data is preliminary, the second latest is revised and the data for the remaining years is final. For further information about the ABS revisions process see the following and related sites: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3303.0Explanatory+Notes12012.

However, data published here are from the following releases: 2018, 2019 and 2020 final; and 2021 and 2022 preliminary

Data quality

Almost all deaths in Australia are registered. However, Indigenous status is not always recorded, or recorded correctly. The incompleteness of Indigenous identification (referred to as completeness of coverage) means that the number of deaths registered as Indigenous is an underestimate of the actual number of deaths which occur in the Indigenous population. It should also be noted that completeness of coverage is likely to vary between geographical areas.

While there is incomplete coverage of Indigenous deaths in all state and territory registration systems, some jurisdictions have been assessed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as having a sufficient level of coverage to enable statistics on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mortality to be produced. Those jurisdictions are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Geography: Data available by Indigenous Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic outcomes (based on IRSEO) and Remoteness Area

Numerator: Total Aboriginal deaths aged 0 to 54 years, 0 to 64 and 0 to 74 years

Denominator: Total Aboriginal population aged 0 to 54 years, 0 to 64 and 0 to 74 years

Detail of analysis: Average annual indirectly age-standardised rate per 100,000 Aboriginal population (aged 0 to 54, 0 to 64 and 0 to 74 years); and/or indirectly age-standardised ratio, based on the Australian standard

Source: Data compiled by PHIDU from deaths data based on the 2018 to 2022 Cause of Death Unit Record Files supplied by the Australian Coordinating Registry and the Victorian Department of Justice, on behalf of the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System. ABS estimated resident population (produced as a consultancy for PHIDU), 30 June 2021