Deaths are defined as avoidable in the context of the present health system.

ICD-10 codes in scope are as specified below:

Rates are age-standardised

Presented per 100,000 population.

100,000 x (Numerator ÷ Denominator)

Calculated separately for ‘preventable’ and ‘treatable’ categories.

2007 and 2008— Nationally, by Indigenous status

2003–2007 and 2004–2008—State and territory, by Indigenous status

Disaggregations within individual jurisdictions are subject to data quality considerations. Some disaggregations may result in numbers too small for publication. Disaggregation by Indigenous status will be based on data only from jurisdictions for which the quality of Indigenous identification is considered acceptable.

Theoretically, this indicator could be adjusted for levels of community morbidity and risk factor prevalence. Or, information on risk factor prevalence and community morbidity could be used to assist interpretation of the indicator. There are currently no methods developed to undertake such adjustments.

The 75 years age cut-off is somewhat arbitrary, and will have different effects on different causes of death. For example, most car accident deaths will be included, but many hip fracture deaths will not be included.

Interpreting a change or difference in a mortality rate is problematic, as the change or difference could reflect variation in disease incidence, survival (case fatality) or both.

Due to small number of Indigenous deaths reported each year, 5 year combined data will be reported for the current reporting period.

Most recent data available for 2011 CRC report:

2007 (updated for national total with only 5 jurisdictions and ABS revised cause of death data) and 2008 (Total population)

Aggregated data (2003–2007) and (2004–2008) (Indigenous status)

National Healthcare Agreement: PB 02—By 2018, reduce the national smoking rate to 10 per cent of the population and halve the Indigenous smoking rate (Baseline specification), 2011