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 Organisation's International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Version 10 of the ICD has been introduced from 1999.

Three technical notes are presented in this publication:

• 2008 COD Collection - Process Improvements
• Causes of Death - Revisions Process
• 2007 Revisions

Users should read these technical notes in order to make themselves aware of changes in ABS processes which have had an impact on 2008 and 2007 data.


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

The series of spreadsheets associated with this publication has been expanded from previous years. Additional data is now available for all states and territories and Australia, for:

• 2007 (revised) underlying cause - standardised death rates and years of potential life lost
• 2007 (revised) selected causes by age at death, numbers and rates

Year of occurrence data will not be included in this publication. It will be released in mid 2010.

Two processing improvements have been introduced to the Causes of Death collection for the release of 2008 (preliminary) data. These improvements relate to the way the ABS codes coroner certified deaths and have had the effect of significantly improving the quality of cause of death codes assigned to coroner certified cases. All 2008 data in this publication have been positively impacted by these improvements. See Technical Note 1: 2008 COD Collection - Process Improvements for further information.


CAUSES OF DEATH REVISIONS

All coroner certified deaths registered after 1 January 2007 are now subject to a revisions process. The revisions process enables the use of additional information relating to coroner certified deaths either 12 or 24 months after initial processing. This increases the specificity of the assigned ICD-10 codes over time. See Technical Note 2: Causes of Death - Revisions Process for further information.

See also Technical Note 3: 2007 Revisions for further information on the impact of the revisions process on 2007 data. 2007 (revised) data are contained in the data cubes associated with this publication.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.