National Healthcare Agreement: PI 07-Infant and young child mortality rate, 2014 QS
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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METEOR identifier: | 517758 |
Registration status: | Health!, Superseded 14/01/2015 |
Data quality | |
Institutional environment: | These collections are conducted under the Census and Statistics Act 1905. 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, see ABS Institutional Environment. |
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Timeliness: | Death records are provided electronically to the ABS by individual Registrars on a monthly basis for compilation into aggregate statistics on a quarterly and annual basis. One dimension of timeliness in death registrations data is the interval between the occurrence and registration of a death. As a result, a small number of deaths occurring in one year are not registered until the following year or later. Births records are provided electronically to the ABS by individual Registrars on a monthly basis for compilation into aggregate statistics on a quarterly and annual basis. One dimension of timeliness in birth registrations data is the interval between the occurrence and registration of a birth. As a result, some births occurring in one year are not registered until the following year or even later. This can be caused by either a delay by the parent(s) in submitting a completed form to the registry, or a delay by the registry in processing the birth (for example, due to follow up activity due to missing information on the form, or resource limitations). Preliminary Estimated Resident Population (ERP) data is compiled and published quarterly and is generally made available five to six months after the end of each reference quarter. Every year, the 30 June ERP is further disaggregated by sex and single year of age, and is made available five to six months after end of the reference quarter. Commencing with data for September quarter 2006, revised estimates are released annually and made available 21 months after the end of the reference period for the previous financial year, once more accurate births, deaths and net overseas migration data becomes available. In the case of births and deaths, the revised data is compiled on a date of occurrence basis. In the case of net overseas migration, final data is based on actual traveller behaviour. Final estimates are made available every 5 years after a census and revisions are made to the previous inter-censal period. Generally ERP data is not changed once it has been finalised unless there are compelling reasons to do so, as in June 2013 when data from September 1991 to June 2006 was revised (for more information on this recasting process, please see the feature article titled Recasting 20 years of ERP in the December quarter 2012 issue of Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0). For further information on ABS Estimated Resident Population, see the relevant Data Quality Statement. |
Accessibility: | Data for this indicator have been presented as crude rates, either per 1,000 live births or 1,000 estimated resident population. |
Interpretability: | Deaths data are available in a variety of formats on the ABS website under the 3302.0 product family. Births data are available in a variety of formats on the ABS website under the 3301.0 product family. ERP data is available in a variety of formats on the ABS website under the 3101.0 product family. Further information on deaths and mortality may be available on request. 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. |
Relevance: | Deaths data are published on an annual basis. The ABS Deaths collection includes all deaths that occurred and were registered in Australia, including deaths of persons whose usual residence is overseas. Deaths of Australian residents that occurred outside Australia may be registered by individual Registrars, but are not included in ABS deaths or causes of death statistics. The ABS Births collection includes all births that are live born and have not been previously registered, births to temporary visitors to Australia, births occurring within Australian Territorial waters, births occurring in Australian Antarctic Territories and other external territories, births occurring in transit (i.e. on ships or planes) if registered in the state or territory of "next port of call", births to Australian nationals employed overseas at Australian legations and consular offices and births that occurred in earlier years that have not been previously registered (late registrations). Births data exclude fetal deaths, adoptions, sex changes, legitimations and corrections, and births to foreign diplomatic staff, and births occurring on Norfolk Island. For further information on the ABS Deaths and Births collections, see the relevant Data Quality Statements. |
Accuracy: | Information on births and deaths is obtained from a complete enumeration of births and deaths registered during a specified period and are not subject to sampling error. However, births and deaths data sources are subject to non-sampling error which can arise from inaccuracies in collecting, recording and processing the data. Concerns have been raised with the accuracy of the NSW births counts in recent years. In response to these concerns the ABS, in conjunction with the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, has undertaken an investigation which has led to the identification of an ABS systems processing error. The ABS acknowledges that this has resulted in previous undercounts of births in NSW. Data for NSW and Australia have been revised to include previously unprocessed NSW birth registrations for the period 2005 to 2011. Although it is considered likely that most deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians are registered, a proportion of these deaths are not registered as Indigenous. 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 and may differ from the self-identified Indigenous origin of the deceased. Forms are often not subject to the same best practice design principles as statistical questionnaires, and respondent and/or interviewer understanding is rarely tested. Over-precise analysis of Indigenous deaths and mortality should be avoided. In November 2010, the Queensland Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages advised the ABS of an outstanding deaths registration initiative undertaken by the Registry. This initiative resulted in the November 2010 registration of 374 previously unregistered deaths which occurred between 1992 and 2006 (including a few for which a date of death was unknown). Of these, around three-quarters (284) were deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The ABS discussed different methods of adjustment of Queensland death registrations data for 2010 with key stakeholders. Following the discussion, a decision was made by the ABS and key stakeholders to use an adjustment method that added together deaths registered in 2010 for usual residents of Queensland which occurred in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. This method minimises the impact on mortality indicators used in various government reports. However, care should still be taken when interpreting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander death data for Queensland for 2010. Investigation conducted by the WA Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages indicated that some deaths of non-Indigenous people were wrongly recorded as deaths of Indigenous people in WA for 2007, 2008 and 2009. The ABS discussed this issue with a range of key stakeholders and users of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths statistics. Following this discussion, the ABS did not release WA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths data for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 in the 2010 issue of Deaths, Australia publication, or in the 2011 National Healthcare Agreement (NHA) data supply. The WA Registry corrected the data and resupplied the corrected data to the ABS. These corrected data were then released by the ABS in spreadsheets attached to Deaths, Australia, 2010 (cat. no. 3302.0) publication on 24 May 2012, and are included in this round of NHA reporting. All ERP data sources are subject to non-sampling error. Non-sampling error can arise from inaccuracies in collecting, recording and processing the data. In the case of Census and Post Enumeration Survey (PES) data every effort is made to minimise reporting error by the careful design of questionnaires, intensive training and supervision of interviewers, and efficient data processing procedures. The ABS does not have control over any non-sampling error associated with births, deaths and migration data. For more information see the Demography Working Paper 1998/2 - Quarterly birth and death estimates, 1998 (cat. no. 3114.0) and Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0). Non-Indigenous estimates are available for census years only. In the intervening years, Indigenous population projections are based on assumptions about past and future levels of fertility, mortality and migration. In the absence of non-Indigenous population figures for these years, it is possible to derive denominators for calculating non-Indigenous rates by subtracting the projected Indigenous population from the total population. For the current round of NHA reporting, in the absence of 2011 Census-based Indigenous population projections, the non-Indigenous population denominator has been calculated by subtracting the 2006 Census-based Indigenous projections (see Experimental Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, August 2009, cat. no. 3238.0) from the 2006 Census-based ERP for total population (3101.0). Such figures have a degree of uncertainty and should be used with caution, particularly as the time from the base year of the projection series increases. Non-Indigenous data from the Deaths collection do not include death registrations with a 'not stated' Indigenous status. Some rates are unreliable due to small numbers of deaths over the reference period. Resultant rates could be misleading for example where the non-Indigenous mortality rate is higher than the indigenous mortality rate. All rates in this indicator must be used with caution. |
Coherence: | The methods used to construct the indicator are consistent and comparable with other collections and with international practice. |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes National Healthcare Agreement: PI 07-Infant and young child mortality rate, 2013 QS Health!, Superseded 14/01/2015 Has been superseded by National Healthcare Agreement: PI 07-Infant and young child mortality rate, 2015 QS Health!, Superseded 08/07/2016 |
Indicators linked to this Data Quality statement: | National Healthcare Agreement: PI 07-Infant and young child mortality rate, 2014 Health!, Superseded 14/01/2015 |