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APPENDIX 2 ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO ADJUST DEATHS
2. Deaths identified as Indigenous in either Census or death registrations in the CDE linked and unlinked data This approach, like the previous approach, is based on Indigenous deaths identified in either the Census or death registrations, but uses the Indigenous deaths identified in the CDE linked file plus those Indigenous deaths which were unable to be linked to a Census record. At the national level, there were 1,800 Indigenous death records available from death registrations for linking in the CDE study. This approach uses all of these Indigenous death records in the numerator to estimate the identification rate, as opposed to 1,327 linked records used by the approach above. Of the 1,800 records, there were 1,650 records on the linked file where the deceased was assumed to be Indigenous based on information from their death registration or Census records (table A2.1 above). The 473 (that is, 1,800 minus 1,327) Indigenous death records which were unable to be linked to Census records were then added to the 1,650 Indigenous death records to get the total number of Indigenous deaths available for analysis after linkage. The identification rate was then calculated as the ratio of Indigenous deaths prior to linkage to Indigenous deaths after linkage; that is, 1,800 / 2,123 * 100 = 85% for Australia.
Like the previous approach, this approach also produces life expectancy estimates which are biased as the identification of Indigenous status in the numerator and the denominator are inconsistent. 3. Chandra Sekar and Deming 'Capture/Recapture' model The ABS has explored the Chandra Sekar and Deming 'Capture/Recapture' approach to deriving identification rates based on the CDE Indigenous Mortality Quality Study data. The logic of this approach is that when a vital registration is incomplete, data obtained from an independent collection can be used in conjunction with the registrar's list to estimate (1) the total number of births and deaths in an area over a specified period, and (2) the completeness of registration. This method was originally applied in a health centre area near Calcutta, India to estimate total numbers of births and deaths and registration completeness for the years 1945 and 1946. The study used data collected from a registration system and an enquiry in the form of a house-to-house canvass (Sekar and Deming, 1949). This approach was also applied to data from a registration system and a survey in conjunction with the 1940 and 1950 Censuses of the United States and the Population Survey in 1969-70 to measure completeness of birth registration (Shryock et al., 1970). This approach was explored using the CDE linked file of the form:
where:
The values a, b and c are observed and d is estimated as b * c / a on the assumption that the process of contributing to the rows is independent of contributing to the columns. An estimate of the total number of Indigenous deaths can be obtained as:
The identification rate for Indigenous deaths can then be estimated as:
where R denotes the total number of Indigenous deaths captured in death registrations and S denotes the total number of Indigenous deaths captured in Census. Identification rates and life expectancy at birth estimates based on this method are presented in table A2.4.
The underlying model is based on the following assumptions:
Assumption (i) is valid in this case though it is likely that the same family member could have provided information for some of the linked deaths/Census records. Virtually all deaths that occur in Australia are registered, but not all Indigenous deaths are registered as such. Similarly, some Indigenous deaths are misclassified as non-Indigenous in Census. Therefore, assumption (ii) may be applicable. The key problem for using this method to derive identification rates for Indigenous deaths based on the CDE linked data relates to the assumption (iv). As can be seen in table 3.3 of Chapter 3: Data linkage to derive Indigenous deaths identification rates, a significant number of deaths were identified as Indigenous in death registrations but were classified as non-Indigenous in the Census, and vice versa. Like the previous two methods, the 'Capture/Recapture' method maximises the number of Indigenous deaths identified by two sources, but disregards the misclassification of Indigenous status reported in Census and registration data. Thus Indigenous classification used in the numerator (deaths) and denominator (population estimates) are again inconsistent. 4. Direct method using identification based on the 2006 Census The CDE linked dataset was used to derive direct estimates of mortality of the Indigenous population counted in the 2006 Census. The method of estimation was a three stage process. Firstly, people who identified themselves as Indigenous in the 2006 Census were selected from the Census. There were 455,028 such people, comprising the denominator of age-specific death rates used for life table calculations. Secondly, only those death records for which Indigenous status was reported as Indigenous in the Census were taken from the linked file. There were 1,379 such records. The CDE study linked 2006 Census records with deaths that occurred from 9 August 2006 to 30 June 2007 for all states/territories (except for Victoria where death records were only available to mid-March 2007). As one full year of deaths are required to derive life tables, deaths were adjusted to account for this part year reference period before using them to compile life tables. Thirdly, age-specific death rates were calculated by dividing the Indigenous deaths by the Indigenous Census counts. These rates were then used to derive Indigenous life tables. No adjustments were made to the death rates to account for potential undercoverage of deaths, hence the method is referred to as 'direct'. At the Australia level, this approach produced life expectancy at birth estimates of 71.9 years for Indigenous males and 76.4 years for Indigenous females. These estimates are much higher than those derived after adjusting Indigenous deaths by the undercoverage figures obtained from the CDE study. No life tables were produced at the state/territory level as the number of deaths involved were small. This approach was intended to make Indigenous counts for deaths and for the population at risk (that is, Indigenous usual residents of Australians) consistent. However, this is not the case. Because of undercount in Census a proportion of death records could not be linked, as there was no corresponding Census record to link with. Such people are removed from the counts of deaths and from the counts of the population at risk. However, people whose information from death registrations or Census is not accurate enough to make a link are not included in the death counts, but it is not possible to remove from the Census count the corresponding count of people with unlinkable information in Census or what would have been unlinkable information from death registrations, had they died. 5. CDE-adjusted Indigenous deaths with further adjustments to age structure of deaths according to AIHW Indigenous Mortality Data Linkage Study Following the release of the discussion paper, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare provided preliminary results from the Indigenous Mortality Data Linkage Study to ABS. The study has linked deaths from the AIHW National Mortality Database to the AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, the AIHW National Perinatal Data Collection, the Aboriginal Health Liaison Officer Dataset and to the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing Residential Aged Care Dataset for 2001-2006 to enhance identification of Indigenous deaths. From these data, estimates of Indigenous life expectancy at birth taking into account differential identification of Indigenous deaths according to age and sex were derived. ABS calculated age-specific Indigenous deaths identification rates for Australia directly from the AIHW data, which were applied to the number of CDE-adjusted deaths (these are the numbers of Indigenous deaths used to produce the ABS estimates in this publication) to obtain age-adjusted numbers of Indigenous deaths. These deaths were then used as numerators in the calculation of abridged life tables. For Australia, this approach resulted in life expectancy at birth estimates of 67.1 years for Indigenous males and 72.7 years for Indigenous females (table A2.5). It should be noted that the identification rates from the AIHW study relate to the period 2001-2006 while the number of CDE-adjusted deaths relate to 2005-2007. Nevertheless, the estimates derived from this approach are very similar to the ABS estimates for 2005-2007 (67.2 years for Indigenous males and 72.9 years for Indigenous females; table 1.1).
6. Direct method using deaths identified as Indigenous in AIHW Indigenous Mortality Data Linkage Study The AIHW provided estimates of Indigenous life expectancy at birth based on complete life tables using the average yearly number of deaths for 2001-2006 identified as Indigenous in the Indigenous Mortality Data Linkage Study. For Australia, this resulted in life expectancy at birth estimates of 67.1 years for Indigenous males and 73.1 years for Indigenous females (table A2.6). ABS also calculated Indigenous life expectancy at birth from these data, using abridged life tables, consistent with the methodology used to produce the ABS life expectancy estimates presented in this publication (abridged life tables were chosen as age-specific death rates for 5-year age groups were considered more reliable than those for single years of age due to the small annual numbers of Indigenous deaths in the states and territories). For Australia, this approach resulted in life expectancy at birth estimates of 66.7 years for Indigenous males and 72.6 years for Indigenous females (table A2.6). The small differences between these and the AIHW estimates derived from complete life tables may be due to the choice of method for approximating mortality for 85 years and over. Both of the above estimates derived from the AIHW Indigenous Mortality Data Linkage Study are consistent with ABS Indigenous life expectancy estimates presented in this publication.
References Sekar, Chandra and W. Edwards Deming (1949), On a method of estimating birth and death rates and the extent of registration, Journal of American Statistical Association, vol. 44, No. 245, pp. 101-115. Shryock H, Siegel J and Associates (1976), The Methods and Materials of Demography, Condensed Edition, Academic Press, New York. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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