INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

Statistics presented in Causes of Death, Australia: Doctor Certified Deaths, Summary Tables, 2011 (cat. no. 3303.0.55.001) are sourced from deaths registrations administered by the various state and territory Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages. It is a legal requirement of each state and territory, that all deaths are registered. Information about the deceased is supplied by a relative or other person acquainted with the deceased, or by an official of the institution where the death occurred. As part of the registration process, information on the cause of death is either supplied by the medical practitioner certifying the death on a Medical Certificate of Cause of Death, or supplied as a result of a coronial investigation. Those supplied as a result of a coronial investigation are not contained within this publication.

Death records are provided electronically to the ABS by individual Registrars, on a monthly basis. Each death record contains both demographic data and medical information from the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death where available.

RELEVANCE

The scope of the collection is:

• all deaths registered in Australia for the reference year and are received by the ABS by the end of the March quarter of the subsequent year; and
• deaths registered prior to the reference year but not previously received from the Registrar nor included in any statistics reported for an earlier period.

Data in the Causes of Death collection include demographic items, as well as Causes of Death information, which is coded according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). ICD is the international standard classification for epidemiological purposes and is designed to promote international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of cause of death statistics. The classification is used to classify diseases and causes of disease or injury as recorded on many types of medical records as well as death records. The ICD has been revised periodically to incorporate changes in the medical field. The 10th revision of ICD (ICD-10) is used for 2011 data.

TIMELINESS

Causes of death publications rely on the completion of the ABS Deaths collection, which is published within 11 months of the end of the reference period e.g. 2011 deaths were released in November 2012. Following this release, Causes of Death, Doctor Certified Deaths are published annually and released within 11 months of the reference period. For example, 2011 data are released in November 2012.

Due to the need to undertake additional intensive work on coroner certified referred deaths, a second publication containing Causes of Death data for all deaths, including those certified by a Coroner, is published annually and released within approximately 15 months of the end of the reference period.

Causes of Death, Doctor Certified deaths statistics are released with a view to ensuring that they are fit for purpose when released. To meet user requirements for timely data it is often necessary to obtain information from the administrative source before all information for the reference period is available. A balance needs to be maintained between accuracy (completeness) of data and timeliness, taking account of the different needs of users.

ACCURACY

Non-sample errors are the main influence on accuracy in datasets such as this which are a complete census of the population rather than a sample. Non-sample error arises from inaccuracies in collecting, recording and processing the data. The most significant of these errors are: mis-reporting of data items; deficiencies in coverage; non-response to particular questions; and processing errors.

Every effort is made to minimise error by working closely with data providers, the careful design of forms, training of processing staff, and efficient data processing procedures. Quality assurance procedures are employed within the ABS to reconcile and validate counts.

COHERENCE

Use of the supporting documentation released with these statistics is important for assessing coherence within the dataset and when comparing the statistics with data from other sources. Changing business rules over time and/or across data sources can affect consistency and hence interpretability of statistical output. The Explanatory Notes in this issue contain information pertinent to this particular release which may impact on comparisons over time.

INTERPRETABILITY

Information on some aspects of statistical quality may be hard to obtain as information on the source data has not been kept over time. This is related to the issue of the administrative rather than statistical purpose of the collection of the source data.

The Causes of Death, Doctor Certified Deaths publication contains detailed Explanatory Notes and a Glossary that provide information on the data sources, terminology, classifications and other technical aspects associated with these statistics.

ACCESSIBILITY

In addition to the information provided in this publication, a data cube is also available providing detailed breakdowns by causes of death. The ABS observes strict confidentiality protocols as required by the Census and Statistics Act (1905). This may restrict access to data at a very detailed level which is sought by some users.

If the information you require is not available from the publication or the data cube, then the ABS may also have other relevant data available on request. Inquiries should be made to the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or by sending an email to client.services@abs.gov.au.