A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people

BACKGROUND: Significant variation exists in published Aboriginal mortality and life expectancy (LE) estimates due to differing and evolving methodologies required to correct for inadequate recording of Aboriginality in death data, under-counting of Aboriginal people in population censuses, and unexp...

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Autores principales: Phillips, Bronwen, Morrell, Stephen, Taylor, Richard, Daniels, John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3893414/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24383435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1
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author Phillips, Bronwen
Morrell, Stephen
Taylor, Richard
Daniels, John
author_facet Phillips, Bronwen
Morrell, Stephen
Taylor, Richard
Daniels, John
author_sort Phillips, Bronwen
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Significant variation exists in published Aboriginal mortality and life expectancy (LE) estimates due to differing and evolving methodologies required to correct for inadequate recording of Aboriginality in death data, under-counting of Aboriginal people in population censuses, and unexplained growth in the Aboriginal population attributed to changes in the propensity of individuals to identify as Aboriginal at population censuses. The objective of this paper is to analyse variation in reported Australian Aboriginal mortality in terms of LE and infant mortality rates (IMR), compared with all Australians. METHODS: Published data for Aboriginal LE and IMR were obtained and analysed for data quality and method of estimation. Trends in reported LE and IMR estimates were assessed and compared with those in the entire Australian population. RESULTS: LE estimates derived from different methodologies vary by as much as 7.2 years for the same comparison period. Indirect methods for estimating Aboriginal LE have produced LE estimates sensitive to small changes in underlying assumptions, some of which are subject to circular reasoning. Most indirect methods appear to under-estimate Aboriginal LE. Estimated LE gaps between Aboriginal people and the overall Australian population have varied between 11 and 20 years. Latest mortality estimates, based on linking census and death data, are likely to over-estimate Aboriginal LE. Temporal LE changes by each methodology indicate that Aboriginal LE has improved at rates similar to the Australian population overall. Consequently the gap in LE between Aboriginal people and the total Australian population appears to be unchanged since the early 1980s, and at the end of the first decade of the 21st century remains at least 11–12 years. In contrast, focussing on the 1990–2010 period Aboriginal IMR declined steeply over 2001–08, from more than 12 to around 8 deaths per 1,000 live births, the same level as Australia overall in 1993–95. The IMR gap between Aboriginal people and the total Australian population, while still unacceptable, has declined considerably, from over 8 before 2000 to around 4 per 1,000 live births by 2008. CONCLUSIONS: Regardless of estimation method used, mortality and LE gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are substantial, but remain difficult to estimate accurately.
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spelling pubmed-38934142014-01-17 A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people Phillips, Bronwen Morrell, Stephen Taylor, Richard Daniels, John BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Significant variation exists in published Aboriginal mortality and life expectancy (LE) estimates due to differing and evolving methodologies required to correct for inadequate recording of Aboriginality in death data, under-counting of Aboriginal people in population censuses, and unexplained growth in the Aboriginal population attributed to changes in the propensity of individuals to identify as Aboriginal at population censuses. The objective of this paper is to analyse variation in reported Australian Aboriginal mortality in terms of LE and infant mortality rates (IMR), compared with all Australians. METHODS: Published data for Aboriginal LE and IMR were obtained and analysed for data quality and method of estimation. Trends in reported LE and IMR estimates were assessed and compared with those in the entire Australian population. RESULTS: LE estimates derived from different methodologies vary by as much as 7.2 years for the same comparison period. Indirect methods for estimating Aboriginal LE have produced LE estimates sensitive to small changes in underlying assumptions, some of which are subject to circular reasoning. Most indirect methods appear to under-estimate Aboriginal LE. Estimated LE gaps between Aboriginal people and the overall Australian population have varied between 11 and 20 years. Latest mortality estimates, based on linking census and death data, are likely to over-estimate Aboriginal LE. Temporal LE changes by each methodology indicate that Aboriginal LE has improved at rates similar to the Australian population overall. Consequently the gap in LE between Aboriginal people and the total Australian population appears to be unchanged since the early 1980s, and at the end of the first decade of the 21st century remains at least 11–12 years. In contrast, focussing on the 1990–2010 period Aboriginal IMR declined steeply over 2001–08, from more than 12 to around 8 deaths per 1,000 live births, the same level as Australia overall in 1993–95. The IMR gap between Aboriginal people and the total Australian population, while still unacceptable, has declined considerably, from over 8 before 2000 to around 4 per 1,000 live births by 2008. CONCLUSIONS: Regardless of estimation method used, mortality and LE gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are substantial, but remain difficult to estimate accurately. BioMed Central 2014-01-02 /pmc/articles/PMC3893414/ /pubmed/24383435 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1 Text en Copyright © 2014 Phillips et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Phillips, Bronwen
Morrell, Stephen
Taylor, Richard
Daniels, John
A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people
title A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people
title_full A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people
title_fullStr A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people
title_full_unstemmed A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people
title_short A review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for Australian Aboriginal people
title_sort review of life expectancy and infant mortality estimations for australian aboriginal people
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3893414/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24383435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1
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