NOTES
IN THIS ISSUE
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 Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Version 10 of the ICD has been introduced from 1999.
Explanatory Notes and three technical notes describing the impact of Causes of Death revisions and the Queensland retrospective deaths initiative are presented in this publication. Users should read these notes in order to make themselves aware of any changes in ABS processes.
CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chapter and datacube have been revised to increase and improve the type of analysis provided.
CAUSES OF DEATH REVISIONS
All coroner certified deaths registered after 1 January 2006 are now subject to a revision process. This is a change from previous years where all ABS processing of causes of death data for a particular reference period were finalised approximately 13 months after the end of the reference period. Where insufficient information was available to code a cause of death (e.g. a coroner certified death was yet to be finalised by the Coroner), less specific ICD-10 codes were assigned as required by the ICD-10 coding rules. The revision process enables the use of additional information relating to coroner certified deaths as it becomes available over time. This may result in increased specificity of the assigned ICD-10 codes.
Final data for 2006, 2007 and 2008 and revised data for 2009 is published in this release on a reference year basis. Final 2009 data will also be published in the 2011 Causes of Death release in March 2013. The revisions process only impacts on coroner certified deaths which remain open at the finalisation of ABS processing. See Explanatory Notes 35-39 and Technical Notes, Causes of Death Revisions, 2006 and Causes of Death Revisions, 2008 and 2009.
PERINATAL DEATHS
From 2010, perinatal death statistics have been included in Causes of Death, Australia.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This publication draws extensively on information provided freely by the state and territory Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine who manage the National Coroners Information System (NCIS). Their continued cooperation is very much appreciated: without it, the wide range of vitals statistics published by the ABS would not be available.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.
SUMMARY COMMENTARY