Target 1

Measure

Life expectancy at birth for First Nations males and First Nations females.

Available by

• Sex: males, females.


• Remoteness Area (AUS only): Major cities, Inner and Outer regional, Remote and Very remote.


• Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD) (AUS only): quintiles from most disadvantaged to least disadvantaged.

Data period

3-year period (2020–2022)

Data source

ABS Life Tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, via the Australian Government Productivity Commission website (PC 2025; ABS 2023a).

Region types

Main structures: Australia (includes NSW, Qld, WA, NT only), states and territories.

Suppression

Measure based on publicly available data with no further suppression rules applied.

Notes

• Australia values comprised of states and territories that produce sub-national life expectancy estimates by Indigenous status: New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory only.


• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous life tables are based on ERP (based on the Census of Population and Housing and the Census Post Enumeration Survey) and death registration information provided by the State/Territory Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages.


• Life expectancy estimates by Indigenous status are produced for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory only. These estimates are calculated without taking age-specific identification rates into account. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy estimates are not produced for Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory due to the small number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths reported in these jurisdictions. Caution is required when interpreting trends in life expectancy estimates, because of changes in Indigenous identification across data collection and over time, and variation across geographies and socioeconomic groups.


• All states and territories use information acquired from the Death registration form (DRF) to identify an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander death. Over time, jurisdictions have supplemented information from the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) to improve the identification of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander deaths in the data. New South Wales started using information on the MCCD for identifying Indigenous status from 2022, and the deceased was identified as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person when recorded as such on either the DRF or the MCCD. If the two sources did not agree, identification on either source was given preference over recording the deceased as non-Indigenous. This change aligns deaths records for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in New South Wales with most other jurisdictions (with the exception of Victoria), where both the DRF and the MCCD have been used for a number of years. This change in how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths were identified means that life expectancy estimates for 2020–2022 cannot be compared with previous life expectancy estimates for New South Wales.


• Remoteness Areas are defined by the Australian Statistical Geographical Standard (ASGS) and based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia which uses the road distance to goods and services (such as general practitioners, hospitals and specialist care) to measure relative accessibility of regions around Australia (ABS 2023b).


• IRSD quintile analysis based on ABS IRSD 2021 which focuses on relative socio-economic disadvantage, using SA1 as the building block. Data are reported by IRSD quintile that are determined at the Australian level and exclude children with unknown or unavailable SEIFA score (ABS 2023c).

Measures

• Gap in life expectancy at birth between First Nations and non-Indigenous males (years).


• Gap in life expectancy at birth between First Nations and non-Indigenous females (years).

Data period

3-year period (2020–2022)

Data source

ABS Life Tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, via the Australian Government Productivity Commission website (PC 2025; ABS 2023a).

Region types

Main structures: Australia (includes NSW, Qld, WA, NT only), states and territories.

Suppression

Measure based on publicly available data with no further suppression rules applied.

Notes

• Australia values comprised of states and territories that produce sub-national life expectancy estimates by Indigenous status: New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory only.


• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous life tables are based on ERP (based on the Census of Population and Housing and the Census Post Enumeration Survey) and death registration information provided by the State/Territory Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages.


• Life expectancy estimates by Indigenous status are produced for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory only. These estimates are calculated without taking age-specific identification rates into account. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy estimates are not produced for Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory due to the small number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths reported in these jurisdictions. Caution is required when interpreting trends in life expectancy estimates, because of changes in Indigenous identification across data collection and over time, and variation across geographies and socioeconomic groups.


• All states and territories use information acquired from the Death registration form (DRF) to identify an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander death. Over time, jurisdictions have supplemented information from the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) to improve the identification of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander deaths in the data. New South Wales started using information on the MCCD for identifying Indigenous status from 2022, and the deceased was identified as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person when recorded as such on either the DRF or the MCCD. If the two sources did not agree, identification on either source was given preference over recording the deceased as non-Indigenous. This change aligns deaths records for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in New South Wales with most other jurisdictions (with the exception of Victoria), where both the DRF and the MCCD have been used for a number of years. This change in how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths were identified means that life expectancy estimates for 2020–2022 cannot be compared with previous life expectancy estimates for New South Wales.

Measures

• Number of deaths due to 5 leading causes of death among First Nations people.


• Crude rate (per 100,000 population) of deaths due to 5 leading causes of death among First Nations people.

Available by

Sex: males, females, persons.

Data periods

2020–2024

Data sources

AIHW National Mortality Database (NMD).

Region types

• Main structures: Australia, states and territories, Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4).


• Indigenous structures: Indigenous Regions (IREG).

Suppression

• Data have been suppressed to protect confidentiality when the number of deaths is less than 5, including the use of consequential suppression to prevent back-calculation.


• Data have been suppressed for sensitivity considerations when the number of deaths is between 5 and 9, using primary suppression only.


• Proportions have been suppressed due to concerns about data volatility when the denominator is less than 100.

Notes

• Cause of Death Unit Record File data are provided to the AIHW by the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System (managed by the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety) and include cause of death coded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The data are maintained by the AIHW in the National Mortality Database.


• Versions of data: deaths registered in years 2021 and earlier – Final; 2022 – Revised; 2023 and 2024 – Preliminary. Revised and preliminary versions were subject to further revision by the ABS.


• Mortality rates (crude) reported for 2020–2024 are reported for the 5 jurisdictions (New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory) where the quality of Indigenous status identification in deaths data is considered adequate. National mortality rates for this period are therefore reported for these 5 jurisdictions combined. Rates are not reported for Victoria, Tasmania or the Australian Capital Territory due to concerns about the quality of Indigenous status identification in deaths data.


• Deaths were registered in 2020–2024 among people identified as of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) origin. The analysis excluded deaths where Indigenous status was non-Indigenous or not stated.


• The First Nations origin of a deceased person is captured in death registration via the Death Registration Form (DRF) and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD). The use of both the DRF and MCCD to derive Indigenous status has varied over time and across jurisdictions. In 2022, New South Wales began using both sources to derive Indigenous status, followed by Victoria in 2023, bringing these jurisdictions into line with all other states and territories. These changes have improved the recording of Indigenous status, but also introduced breaks in time series data for NSW, Victoria and Australia. For further information and discussion of the impacts, see the ABS methodology notes on Deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/causes-death-australia-methodology/2024#deaths-of-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people).


• Cause of death information was based on underlying cause of death and classified according to the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). The causes were ranked by using the AIHW-modified version of groupings recommended by the WHO Becker et al. (2006). A method for deriving leading causes of death. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 84: 297–304.


• Deaths were counted according to year of registration of death and region of usual residence.


• Except for the Australian Capital Territory, data at the SA4 level were aggregated from Statistical Areas Level 2 (SA2s) by truncating the digits of the SA2 codes. For the Australian Capital Territory, the state and SA4 data were identical as they pertained to the same geographic boundary.


• Except for the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania, data at the IREG level were aggregated from SA2s by using ABS Indigenous population-weighted geographic correspondences. For the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania, the state and IREG data were identical as they pertained to the same geographic boundaries.