INFANT MORTALITY
A high degree of caution should be exercised in regard to interpreting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infant deaths data, as in addition to the data quality issues that impact on Indigenous deaths data generally, data on infant mortality by Indigenous status is subject to the high variability caused by small numbers. To add robustness to the infant mortality counts, data are presented for the current period of 2006-2010 and Western Australia is not included. See Explanatory Notes 74-83 and 104 for further information.
For 2006-2010, the infant mortality rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians was around twice that of non-Indigenous Australians (8.2 compared with 4.2). Of the 450 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infant deaths (aged under twelve months) registered from 2006-2010, just over half (238) were attributed to Conditions originating in the Perinatal Period (P00-P96).