Notes on the data: Aboriginal potential years of life lost, by selected cause

Potential years of life lost from deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons aged 0 to 74 years, by selected cause, 2018 to 2022

Policy context: Over the years 2018 to 2022, almost four in five (76.7%) deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people occurred before 75 years of age, over twice (2.30) the proportion for all Australians, of 33.4%: details here.

However, depending on the age at which a person dies, the number of years of life lost had they lived until, say, 74 years of age will vary. Potential years of life lost (PYLL) is a measure of the sum of the potential years of life lost from deaths at 15 years (60 years), 45 years (30 years) and so on, assuming they had all lived to 74 years of age.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare note that, on this measure, a particular PYLL value will be higher if mortality among children or young people is high; chronic diseases causing death among the elderly, on the other hand, have little effect on these values [1].

Some notable variations shown by the data for the five years 2018 to 2022 [2] are:

the range between the selected causes was from 2.1 PYLLs per 1,000 population for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), to 11.9 PYLLs per 1,000 population for circulatory system diseases and 20.1 PYLLs per 1,000 population for external causes;
for each of the selected causes the rates were highest in the Northern Territory;
the rate of PYLLs from each selected cause increased with increasing disadvantage;
deaths from diabetes had a rate almost five times (4.84) times that in the least disadvantaged areas across Australia – in South Australia , with the largest gap, it was 6.29 times; and
for those living in the Very Remote areas in the combined jurisdictions, PYLL rates for diabetes were 5.6 times those in the Major Cities areas – the variations in rates between the Major Cities and Very Remote areas were over five times higher for road traffic injuries (5.36 and over three and a half times higher for ischaemic heart disease (3.64).

References

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Deaths in Australia. Available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/web/152/deaths/deaths-in-australia/contents/age-at-death; last accessed 3 February 2020.
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: The sum of the number of years between the actual age at death and 75 years of age for all deaths by selected causes of each of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons aged 0 to 74 years

Denominator: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons aged 0 to 74 years

Detail of analysis: Average annual indirectly age-standardised rate of potential years of life lost per 1,000 population (aged 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.