Interpretation of results
Perinatal mortality among Indigenous babies has remained twice that of their non-Indigenous counterparts for more than a decade. We found that most of this mortality excess is because Indigenous babies are at greater risk of being born too early and too small. In contrast, the case fatality rates of Indigenous babies who were born preterm or of low birth weight were similar to their non-Indigenous counterparts.
Using a framework advocated by several perinatal epidemiologists [11–13], these results suggests that, broadly speaking, access to high quality care during confinement is adequate for Indigenous mothers and babies. That is, priority should initially be given to primary health care interventions to reduce the proportion of preterm and low birth weight babies.
Policy implications
Risk factors for preterm birth and low birth weight include smoking, gentio-urinary tract infections, poor maternal nutrition and psycho-social stress [16–19]. Several studies have reported a higher prevalence of these risk factors among Indigenous compared with non-Indigenous mothers.
More specifically, the prevalence of smoking among Indigenous women during pregnancy has been reported to be more than 60%, which is at least 3 times the prevalence for non-Indigenous women [9, 20, 21]. A recent Cochran review found that there are effective primary health care interventions to help and support women to stop smoking that lead to fewer preterm babies and better birthweights [22]. Further, we know that Indigenous women are more than two times as likely to have a urinary tract infection during pregnancy as non-Indigenous women [23]. In overseas studies, primary health care interventions to detect and treat asymptomatic bacteruria have been shown to decrease preterm birth by 40% [24].
In Australia, the best example we have of a primary health care initiative aimed at reducing risk factors among Indigenous mothers is the Strong Women Strong Babies Strong Culture program in the Northern Territory [25]. This program resulted in increased early attendance for antenatal care, reduced numbers of STDs and a reduced proportion of low birthweight babies [26].
Although such results are encouraging, if substantial progress is to be made across the whole of Australia, a properly funded national initiative is needed. Such an initiative would include funding to improve access to culturally appropriate primary health care during the antenatal period, which would deliver, inter alia, interventions for smoking cessation, screening and treatment of genito-urinary tract infections, screening for domestic violence, and programs aimed at reducing alcohol consumption and poor nutrition.
It would not be a case of one strategy fits all. Instead local partnerships with possibly different types of service models would be needed to implement the national initiative. This approach will encourage creativity, innovation and risk taking, which will be essential ingredients to tackling a situation that has proved difficult to improve.
Study limitations
Using vital statistics to set agendas has a long and continuing tradition in public health [27]. The advantages of such statistics are convenience, low cost and total enumeration. The disadvantages are insufficient and inaccurate data, which create uncertainty about the validity of the results [27]. This study used four variables: perinatal death, birthweight, gestational age, and Indigenous status. It is unlikely that an important number of perinatal deaths were missed because they are checked against notifications to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. It is also unlikely that there are important errors in the measurement of birthweight. Consequently, the main areas of uncertainty are Indigenous status and gestational age.
With regard to Indigenous status, some mothers may be reluctant to identify as Indigenous, others may be non-Indigenous with an Indigenous male partner, or midwives may not ask the mother or make an educated guess [28]. However, of all the types of mortality data, perinatal mortality provides the most accurate estimate of excess Indigenous mortality because the numerator (number of perinatal deaths) and denominator (number of births) for the rate can be obtained from the one data set. This is in contrast to adult death rates where identification of Indigenous people can be different in death registration data (the numerator for mortality rates) and population data (the denominator). This problem of the numerator not being appropriate for the denominator is not unique to comparisons of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians; it hinders interpretation of race-specific rates around the world [29, 30]. Thus, of all the routinely available mortality data, perinatal data provides the most valid estimate of the mortality excess for Indigenous people and provides robust support for policy discussions.
For several reasons, gestational age is known to be less accurate among Indigenous than non-Indigenous babies [31]. Nevertheless, previous work in Queensland and elsewhere has shown that gestational age in combination with birthweight provides a better statistical adjustment of mortality rates than birthweight alone [32, 33]. We therefore considered it better to present birthweight and gestational age adjusted rates, rather than just birthweight-adjusted rates.