Update on deaths data at the AIHW - July 2012
The AIHW has recently been granted access to the latest cause of death unit record files (CODURFs), up to 2010. These data were provided by the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the National Coroners Information System.
The AIHW uses these data to maintain the National Mortality Database (NMD) and the National Death Index (NDI). The NMD is used for reporting on causes of death and the NDI enables data linkage activity for health and medical research relating to mortality.
The AIHW can now resume fulfilling requests for information about mortality. Please note, while AIHW is not able to provide access to their databases for external users, we can usually provide tabulated information about causes of death using the NMD. These requests are subject to confidentialisation of the tabulated data.
For information about causes of death, please contact the AIHW on .
For details about using the NDI for health and medical research please contact the AIHW on .
Requests to the AIHW for data linkage output from the NDI require AIHW Ethics Committee approval; details can be found here: www.aihw.gov.au/national-death-index/.
Applicants are likely to experience some delays due to the current backlog of requests.
The AIHW National Mortality Database is held at the AIHW for the purpose of data analysis in health research. The database is primarily used for cause of death analysis, and contains demographic information for analysis by population groups such as age, sex, Indigenous status, country of birth and geographic location.