3301.0 - Births, Australia, 2006  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 29/10/2007   
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APPENDIX: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COLLECTIONS


BIRTH REGISTRATIONS COMPARED TO THE PERINATAL DATA COLLECTION

Birth registration data in this publication are not the only births data available in Australia. The National Perinatal Statistics Unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) also collects birth data from midwives and other health professionals who attend births. This data is published annually in Australia's Mothers and Babies.


As information from these two collections are from different sources, the statistics obtained vary. For example, the Perinatal Data Collection reported the occurrence of 255,300 live births in Australia in 2004 (the latest available data), 0.4% more than the 254,200 births registered in the same year.


Graph A1.1 shows the total number of live births in Australia by type of collection and recording basis from 1992 to 2004. Births from the Perinatal Data Collection are shown on a year of occurrence basis. Registered births from the ABS Birth Registrations collection are shown on a year of registration basis and on a year of occurrence basis, which includes births that occurred in a particular year but may have been registered up to and including the year 2006. Prior to 1994, the Perinatal Data Collection showed fewer births than births registered. This position then reversed, with the gap between births reported in the two collections widening until 1999 (when there were 3% more births recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection than births registered). Since then, the size of the difference between the two collections has decreased, to 0.4% in 2004.


While difficult to explain the differences, the greater number of births in the Perinatal Data Collection may be due to improvements in quality and coverage, particularly with the introduction of a perinatal National Minimum Dataset (NMDS) in 1997 which developed national standards for the collection of perinatal statistics. The trend may also reflect the increasing likelihood over time of parent(s) to delay or fail to register the birth of a child. For birth registrations data, the proportion of births that occurred in 2004 and were registered in 2004 was 87%. A decade ago, 90% of births that occurred in 1994 were registered in 1994.

A2.1 live births, Type of collection
Graph: A2.1 live births, Type of collection



The following analysis of differences between the collections is made on live births between the Perinatal Data Collection on a year of occurrence basis and the Birth Registrations collection on a year of registration basis.



Age of mother

Age of mother is a factor which contributes to differences between the two collections. In 2004, a higher number of confinements were recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection than in the Birth Registrations collection for mothers in all age groups. For mothers aged 19 years and under, there were 6.6% more confinements recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection, with differences declining with increasing age of mother to 0.8% for 30-34 year old mothers. The number of confinements in the Birth Registrations collection outnumbered those in the Perinatal Data Collection by less than 1% for mothers aged 35 years and over.

A2.2 Confinements, Difference between collections by age of mother - 2004

Perinatal Data Collection
Birth Registrations
Difference(a)
no.
no.
%

19 years and under
11 541
10 779
6.6
20-24 years
36 874
35 797
2.9
25-29 years
68 599
67 864
1.1
30-34 years
86 404
85 751
0.8
35-39 years
41 093
41 180
-0.2
40 years and over
8 318
8 373
-0.7
Total(b)
252 871
250 045
1.1

(a) Positive figures denote more confinements recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection than the Birth Registrations collection.
(b) Includes age of mother not stated.



Births to Indigenous mothers

There are differences between Indigenous data from the Perinatal Data Collection and birth registrations data. In all years from 1998 to 2004 the number of births to Indigenous mothers as recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection exceeded registered births to Indigenous mothers. In 2004 there were 8,900 live births to Indigenous mothers recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection, 300 (3%) more than the number recorded in the Birth Registrations collection (8,600).


It is important to recognise that data concerning Indigenous status is affected by identification issues. Differences between the Perinatal Data Collection and birth registrations data may in part be due to low coverage of registrations of Indigenous births (for example, the coverage of registered Indigenous births, where at least one parent identified as being of Indigenous origin, was estimated at 94% for the period 2000-2004). However, failure to determine Indigenous status may also affect the Perinatal Data Collection. As a result, caution should be used when interpreting Indigenous births data from either source. Paragraphs 14 to 20 of the Explanatory Notes provide further information about coverage of Indigenous birth registrations.

A2.3 live births to indigenous mothers, Type of collection
Graph: A2.3 live births to indigenous mothers, Type of collection




State and territory comparisons

While birth registration data provides information on state/territory of registration or state/territory of usual residence of mother, the Perinatal Data Collection only provides data on the state/territory in which the birth took place (that is, the state/territory of occurrence). The following analysis therefore compares state/territory of usual residence from birth registrations to state/territory of occurrence from the Perinatal Data Collection. As a small number of births occur in a different state or territory to that of the mother's usual residence, there are some minor differences. For example, some women living in rural New South Wales close to the Australian Capital Territory have their babies in Canberra. As a consequence, the Australian Capital Territory has been excluded from the comparisons below.


In 2004, the Perinatal Data Collection recorded more births in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, while there were more births registered in New South Wales, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

A2.4 Live births, Type of collection by state/territory - 2004

NSW
Vic.
Qld
SA
WA
Tas.
NT
Total(a)

Perinatal Data Collection (no.)
85 065
63 082
50 563
17 408
25 340
5 483
3 452
255 286
Birth Registrations (no.)
85 894
62 417
49 940
17 140
25 295
5 809
3 551
254 246
Difference (%)(b)
-1.0
1.1
1.2
1.5
0.2
-5.9
-2.9
0.4

(a) Includes Australian Capital Territory and Other Territories.
(b) Positive figures denote more births recorded in the Perinatal Data Collection than the Birth Registrations collection.