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TECHNICAL NOTE 3 UPDATES TO 2013 AND 2014 SUICIDE DATA
This note was released on 4 April, 2017.

As part of the ABS's revisions process for causes of death, the ABS updates causes for coroner-certified deaths at 12 and 24 months after initial processing, to reflect the latest available information. Revisions have now been applied to 2013 and 2014 data. As coronial investigations regarding suicide deaths can be extensive, it is a cause of death which is more likely to change through the revisions process. It is important from a public health perspective to have accurate counts of suicide deaths. As such, this technical note focusses on how the revisions process has changed suicide counts in 2013 and 2014.

Over time there has been a reduction in the number of death that are reassigned to suicide through the three-year revision process. In 2006 and 2007, the first years for which revisions were applied, the number of suicide deaths increased by 17.7% and 18.5%, respectively. In 2013, the final suicide count was only 3.5% higher than the initial count. This highlights the increased quality of initial data which is due to several factors. Coding practices have been enhanced, enabling greater use of documents available on the National Coronial Information System (NCIS), while the attachment rates for these documents has also become more timely. In combination, these practices have resulted in more accurate preliminary coding.

2013 final suicide count
The final number of suicide deaths recorded for 2013 was 2,610, a net increase of 88 suicide deaths (3.5%) from the initial count of 2,522. There was an increase of 48 suicide deaths over the first revision period and a further 40 suicides identified in the second revision period.

There are often questions or concerns raised about where potential suicide deaths are initially coded before later being identified through the revisions process. Deaths which have been re-assigned to suicide through the revisions process were most likely to be coded to an Event of undetermined intent (Y10-Y34) or Accidental poisoning (X40-X44) when initially coded. There are very few deaths which were initially coded to Other ill-defined and unspecified causes of mortality (R99) and later identified as suicide deaths through the revisions process. There were also some minor changes in the recorded mechanism of death associated with additional information becoming available, especially toxicology and pathology reports.

2014 revised suicide count
The revised number of suicide deaths in 2014 was 2,891, a net increase of 27 suicide deaths (0.9%) over the first year of the revisions process. Similar to 2013, most death reassigned to suicide were initially coded to Event of undetermined intent (Y10-Y34) or Accidental poisoning (X40-X44).

Table 4.1 shows the total suicide counts for Australia at each stage of the revisions process for 2013 and 2014.

TABLE 4.1: COUNT OF SUICIDE DEATHS THROUGHOUT REVISIONS - 2013 AND 2014
	Preliminary	Revised	Final
Cause of death and ICD-10 code	no	no	no
2013	2 522	2 570	2 610
2014	2 864	2 891	na
na Not Applicable (a) Intentional self-harm includes ICD-10 codes X60-X84 and Y87.0. Care needs to be taken in interpreting figures relating to suicide. See Explanatory Notes 85-93.

Table 4.2: INTENTIONAL SELF-HARM, number of deaths, states and territories, 2006-2015
	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
MALES
NSW	461	459	477	466	520	465	526	523	600	621
Vic.	360	358	429	434	426	401	391	394	503	501
Qld	383	397	440	415	441	438	477	519	498	568
SA	132	167	129	138	157	167	150	152	186	174
WA	182	204	237	218	250	229	271	252	278	292
Tas	55	47	60	59	47	51	57	54	56	67
NT	29	45	31	31	39	38	41	22	33	32
ACT	22	22	30	23	34	23	17	28	28	36
Australia	1 624	1 699	1 833	1 785	1 914	1 812	1 930	1 944	2 182	2 292
FEMALES
NSW	116	152	143	157	154	152	201	195	207	194
Vic.	125	116	116	142	132	125	123	139	149	153
Qld	111	123	113	110	147	140	154	157	161	178
SA	48	38	46	47	40	45	48	51	56	62
WA	63	62	63	61	63	80	96	84	90	102
Tas	17	19	13	20	17	23	14	20	13	18
NT	2	10	7	6	6	6	7	11	23	18
ACT	10	10	6	9	7	10	7	9	10	10
Australia	494	530	508	552	566	581	650	666	709	735
PERSONS
NSW	577	611	620	623	674	617	727	718	807	815
Vic.	485	474	545	576	558	526	514	533	652	654
Qld	494	520	553	525	588	578	631	676	659	746
SA	180	205	175	185	197	212	198	203	242	236
WA	245	266	300	279	313	309	367	336	368	394
Tas	72	66	73	79	64	74	71	74	69	85
NT	33	55	38	37	45	44	48	33	56	50
ACT	32	32	36	32	41	33	24	37	38	46
Australia	2 118	2 229	2 341	2 337	2 480	2 393	2 580	2 610	2 891	3 027
(a) All causes of death data from 2006 onwards are subject to a revisions process - once data for a reference year are 'final', they are no longer revised. Affected data in this table: 2006-2013 (final), 2014 (revised), 2015 (preliminary). See Explanatory Notes 52-55, A More Timely Annual Collection: Changes to ABS Processes (Technical Note) and Causes of Death Revisions, 2013 Final Data (Technical Note) in this publication. Some figures for 2013 and 2014 in this table will differ to those published in Table 11.5 of the Intentional self-harm data cube as a result of revisions.
(b) Intentional self-harm includes ICD-10 codes X60-X84 and Y87.0. Care needs to be taken in interpreting figures relating to suicide. See Explanatory Notes 85-93.

Table 4.3: INTENTIONAL SELF-HARM, age-standardised death rates, states and territories, 2006-2015
	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
MALES
NSW	13.9	13.6	13.9	13.4	14.7	12.9	14.5	14.1	15.9	16.4
Vic.	14.3	13.9	16.3	16.1	15.6	14.3	13.9	13.5	17.1	16.9
Qld	19.4	19.6	21.2	19.5	20.4	19.9	21.2	22.7	21.3	24.4
SA	17.2	21.5	16.5	17.4	19.1	20.4	18.0	18.0	22.3	19.8
WA	17.8	19.3	21.6	19.3	21.7	19.1	22.1	19.8	21.2	22.0
Tas	23.2	19.8	25.8	24.0	19.6	20.2	22.1	21.4	21.7	25.8
NT	24.8	50.0	27.5	28.1	31.6	30.5	31.0	18.5	24.1	27.2
ACT	13.6	14.2	16.6	13.1	19.2	14.0	8.7	14.6	14.6	18.2
Australia	16.0	16.5	17.4	16.5	17.5	16.2	17.0	16.8	18.5	19.3
FEMALES
NSW	3.3	4.3	4.0	4.3	4.2	4.0	5.3	5.1	5.3	5.1
Vic.	4.7	4.4	4.3	5.1	4.6	4.3	4.4	4.6	5.0	5.0
Qld	5.5	6.0	5.3	5.0	6.6	6.2	6.8	6.7	6.8	7.3
SA	5.8	4.5	5.6	5.8	4.7	5.5	5.7	6.0	6.5	7.3
WA	6.1	5.9	5.9	5.4	5.4	6.7	7.9	6.7	7.0	7.9
Tas	np	np	np	7.6	np	8.9	np	7.4	np	np
NT	np	np	np	np	np	np	np	np	18.7	np
ACT	np	np	np	np	np	np	np	np	np	np
Australia	4.7	5.0	4.7	5.0	5.0	5.1	5.6	5.6	5.9	6.1
PERSONS
NSW	8.4	8.9	8.8	8.7	9.3	8.4	9.8	9.5	10.5	10.6
Vic.	9.4	9.0	10.2	10.5	10.1	9.2	9.0	8.9	10.9	10.8
Qld	12.3	12.7	13.2	12.1	13.4	12.9	13.9	14.6	14.0	15.7
SA	11.4	12.8	11.0	11.5	11.8	12.9	11.7	11.9	14.3	13.4
WA	11.9	12.5	13.8	12.3	13.6	12.9	14.9	13.3	14.1	15.0
Tas	14.6	13.5	15.0	15.4	13.0	14.1	13.7	14.2	12.8	16.3
NT	15.2	29.8	17.5	17.4	18.8	18.5	19.2	14.3	21.6	21.0
ACT	9.4	9.5	10.1	8.9	11.3	9.3	6.2	9.6	9.8	11.6
Australia	10.2	10.6	10.9	10.7	11.2	10.5	11.2	11.1	12.1	12.6
(a) All causes of death data from 2006 onwards are subject to a revisions process - once data for a reference year are 'final', they are no longer revised. Affected data in this table: 2006-2013 (final), 2014 (revised), 2015 (preliminary). See Explanatory Notes 52-55, A More Timely Annual Collection: Changes to ABS Processes (Technical Note), and Causes of Death Revisions, 2013 Final Data (Technical Note) in this publication. Some figures for 2013 and 2014 in this table will differ to those published in Table 11.6 of the Intentional self-harm data cube as a result of revisions.
(b) Intentional self-harm includes ICD-10 codes X60-X84 and Y87.0. Care needs to be taken in interpreting figures relating to suicide. See Explanatory Notes 85-93.
(c) Age-standardised death rates (SDRs) enable the comparison of death rates between populations with different age structures. The SDRs in this table are presented on a per 100,000 population basis, using the estimated mid-year population (30 June) for each year. See Explanatory Notes 40-42 and the Glossary in Causes of Death, Australia, 2015 (cat. no. 3303.0) for further information.