IJPDS International Journal of Population Data Science

Researchers at the University of Sydney, Australia have revealed important differences in mortality inequalities observed in Māori and Pasifika populations in Australia by using ancestry data from the Australian Census linked to the death registry for 20.3 million people. This latest study, published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS) showed that previously hidden or underestimated inequalities using country of birth were revealed using ancestry data.

Australia has substantial and growing ethnic diversity. Despite this, ethnicity data or research on ethnic inequalities in health is limited, with the exception of vital work regarding First Nations’ Australians. Research on health inequalities in Australia’s non-Indigenous population has, to date, focused on inequalities based on country of birth.  However, there is a sizable and growing population of Australians whose ethnic diversity is not captured by where they were born. For example, less than a third of people identifying as having Lebanese ancestry in the most recent Australian Census have been born in Lebanon.

Country of birth also fails to capture the ethnicity of migrants such as the New Zealand-born Māori population. Pacific Peoples or Pasifika are another group that are undercounted by country of birth, as two thirds of this population have been born in either Australia or New Zealand.

As part of the ‘Beyond Country of Birth’ project, the team looked at existing research on ethnicity classification approaches, including by Māori and Pasifika scholars. Working with a community and expert panel, they developed a new approach to using Australian Census ancestry data that allowed them to look for inequalities in the rate of death by ethnicity in Australia. The findings revealed substantially higher rates of death in people of Māori and Pasifika ethnicity. In contrast, when looking at differences by country of birth only slightly higher mortality in women born in Polynesia was found but not in men. Moreover, without ethnicity data, there is no way of capturing the higher mortality observed in the Māori population in Australia.

It is the recent advances in data linkage infrastructure in Australia that have enabled linkage of the national Census to health data. The Australian Census collects data on ethnicity through a question on self-reported ancestry. Through this valuable data, we can now begin to examine inequalities in health outcomes in these previously ‘invisible’ populations. 

Lead researcher Fiona Stanaway said, “These findings highlight the importance of considering ethnicity when examining health inequalities in Australia. They also highlight the need to move beyond country of birth and capture ethnicity in administrative health data. We recommend these data be collected and evaluated at the health system level, so we will no longer need to rely on complex data linkage to measure, address and monitor inequalities in health in Australia’s ethnically diverse population.”

 

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Associate Professor Fiona Stanaway, University of Sydney, School of Public Health, Australia

Stanaway, F., Zhu, L., McDonald, B., Ravulo, J., Dickson, M., Nassar, N., Yap, M. L., Jorm, L., Aitken, S., Kritharides, L., Wilson, A., Blyth, F. M., Huckel Schneider, C., Khalatbari Soltani, S., Hsu, B. and Allen, L. (2025) “Using linked Census ancestry data to examine all-cause mortality by ethnicity in Australia”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 10(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v10i1.2476.