Linking census records to death registrations, Mar 2010

• Australian Bureau of Statistics

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15 March 2010

In order to gain a better understanding of the extent of Indigenous identification in mortality data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) linked 2006 Census data to death registrations to compare the reported Indigenous status from each dataset. Data linking was conducted by authorised ABS officers during the Census processing period when name and address were available to be used as linking variables. After Census processing, all Census names and addresses held by the ABS were destroyed. This data linking project is referred to as the Indigenous Mortality Quality Study, which forms part of the broader Census Data Enhancement project.

This paper builds on other papers already released about the Indigenous Mortality Quality Study, by elaborating on the probabilistic data linking methodology used to link the Census and death records. An evaluation of the linkage is also provided.