Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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This publication presents statistics on the number of deaths, for reference year by state or territory of Australia, sex, selected age groups, and cause of death classified to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Version 10 of the ICD was introduced from the 1999 reference year onwards, and was further applied to the the 1997 and 1998 reference years. A range of international stakeholders under the guidance of the WHO are in the process of developing a new revision of the ICD. This work is scheduled for completion in 2015 and the ABS is working with Australian and international stakeholders to consider options around the adoption of this revised classification. The ABS is also currently investigating a replacement for software currently used for automated coding of causes of death data.

Causes of death are presented in the publication in a number of different ways including: by underlying cause, leading causes and multiple causes. Data are also presented for deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons, suicide deaths and perinatal deaths.

For the 2007-2009 reference years, perinatals data was released in the Perinatal Deaths, Australia (cat. no. 3304.0) publication. These data have been included in this publication since the 2010 reference year release. Statistics on the number of perinatal deaths are presented for reference year by state or territory of usual residence of Australia, sex and cause of death classified to the WHO's International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Data are presented in this release for reference years from 2002 to 2011.

The 2011 data presented in this publication are preliminary data and will be subject to a revision process. Revised 2010 and final 2009 Causes of Death data are also presented in this publication by underlying cause of death. For more information see Explanatory Notes 29-33 and Technical Notes, Causes of Death Revisions, 2006 in Causes of Death, Australia, 2010 (cat. no. 3303.0) and Causes of Death Revisions, 2009 and 2010 in this publication.