Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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	MORTALITY
	This article is part of a comprehensive series released as The Health and Welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

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KEY MESSAGES In the period from 2006 to 2010 in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory: the largest number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths were registered in Queensland (3,031) followed by New South Wales (2,903) mortality rates for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population were higher than those for the non-Indigenous population in each age group the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infant mortality rate was nearly twice the non-Indigenous rate the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child mortality rate (aged 1-4 years) was more than twice the non-Indigenous rate.

This article provides an overview of mortality data for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Care should be exercised when analysing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths data due to quality issues, such as under-identification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths, and uncertainties inherent in estimating and projecting the size and structure of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population over time (Endnote 1). See the section on 'Understanding the data quality issues' for more information.

Mortality can be used as an indicator of a population’s health and access to medical facilities. Mortality can be measured in a number of different ways. This article includes crude death rates, age-specific death rates, age-standardised death rates and infant and child mortality rates.

Topics covered in this article include:

• Understanding the data quality issues
• Overview of 2006–2010 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths
• Age structure and age at death
• Infant and child mortality.

ENDNOTES

1. For more information see the Explanatory Notes from Deaths, Australia, 2010 (cat.no.3302.0).

This section contains the following subsection :

Understanding the data quality issues

Overview of 2006-2010 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths

Age structure and age at death

Infant and child mortality

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