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released: 15 Oct 2007 author: Kreisfield R & Harrison J

Prior to 1997, Australian mortality data were assigned a single Underlying cause of death (UCoD). This took the form of a code indicating what had caused an injury to occur. From 1997 onward, up to 13, and later up to 20, Multiple causes of death (MCoDs) could be allocated to any death record. These MCoDs represent nearly all of the information about cause of death that appeared on the death certificate. Of particular interest for injury surveillance was the fact that these Multiple causes of death could identify not only the external cause of an injury, but could also provide information about the nature of the injury.

ISSN 1444-778X; ISBN 978 1 74024 711 5; Cat. no. INJCAT 98; 105pp.; INTERNET ONLY

Full publication

Publication table of contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Abbreviations
  • Executive summary
  • Overview of findings
  • Unintentional falls
  • Poisoning by drugs
  • Poisoning by other substances
  • Inhalation of gastric contents, food or other object
  • Sequelae of external causes
  • Certification of death and Underlying cause of death
  • Conclusions
  • 1 Introduction
    • 1.1 Multiple causes of death
    • 1.2 Public health significance of Multiple causes of death information
    • 1.3 Project aims
  • 2 Methods
    • 2.1 Operational definition of injury
    • 2.2 ABS coding practices
    • 2.3 ABS mortality data
    • 2.4 National Coroners Information System
    • 2.5 Linked data
    • 2.6 Literature search
  • 3 Findings
    • 3.1 Operational definition of injury
    • 3.2 ABS mortality coding
    • 3.3 ABS data analyses
      • 3.3.1 Overview
      • 3.3.2 Unintentional falls
      • 3.3.3 Poisoning by drugs
      • 3.3.4 Poisoning by other substances
      • 3.3.5 Inhalations
      • 3.3.6 Sequelae of external causes
    • 3.4 Literature review
  • 4 Discussion
    • 4.1 Aspects of MCoD data relevant to injury surveillance
      • 4.1.1 What is an injury?
      • 4.1.2 Certification of death
      • 4.1.3 Data analyses
      • 4.1.4 Data systems and sources
    • 4.2 Potential for using MCoD information
      • 4.2.1 Falls
      • 4.2.2 Unintentional poisoning by drugs
      • 4.2.3 Unintentional poisoning by other substances
      • 4.2.4 Inhalations
    • 4.2.5 Sequelae of external causes
  • 5 Conclusions
  • Appendix 1: Data issues
    • Data sources
      • ABS deaths data
      • Coronial data
      • Western Australian linked data
    • Age adjustment
    • Confidence intervals
      • ABS deaths data
    • Case definition
      • ABS deaths data
    • Data quality
      • ABS data
      • National Coroners Information System
    • Drugs flag
  • Appendix 2: Falls data extracted from NCIS
  • Appendix 3: Operational definition of injury coding scheme showing mapping from STIPDA coding scheme
  • Appendix 4: Case scenarios coded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • References
  • List of tables
  • List of figures

Recommended citation

Kreisfield R & Harrison J 2007. Use of multiple causes of death data for identifying and reporting injury mortality. Injury technical paper series no. 9. Cat. no. INJCAT 98. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed 12 June 2013 <http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=6442468034>.