Aboriginal mothers who give birth in NSW and Aboriginal babies born in NSW are under-reported on the Perinatal Data Collection. One method of assessing the extent of under-reporting and monitoring changes over time is to compare the reporting of Aboriginal mothers on the Perinatal Data Collection (PDC) with reporting on other data collections. We used Enhanced Reporting of Aboriginality information on the Maternal and Child Health Register (see Data sources) to give a “best estimate" of the true numbers of Aboriginal mothers who gave birth in NSW and Aboriginal babies born in NSW. We compared this estimate with the actual numbers of Aboriginal mothers who gave birth in NSW and Aboriginal babies born in NSW to Aboriginal mothers reported on the Perinatal Data Collection and calculated the level of reporting of Aboriginal mothers who gave birth in NSW and Aboriginal babies born in NSW and for each local health district.
The estimated percentage of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander mothers who gave birth in NSW that were reported to the Perinatal Data Collection was 81.3% in 2019, 83.5% in 2020 and 87.3% in 2021. In 2021, reporting varied between local health districts, ranging from 75.0% in Northern Sydney Local Health District to 92.5% in Mid North Coast Local Health District.
The estimated percentage of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander babies born in NSW that were reported to the Perinatal Data Collection was 65.9% in 2021. Reporting ranged from 57.0% in Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District to 80.5% in Mid North Coast Local Health District. There are therefore a substantial number of Aboriginal babies born in NSW with non-Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander mothers who are not represented in the numbers reported in this chapter.
Numbers of Aboriginal mothers who give birth and babies born to Aboriginal mothers shown in the tables and figures in this web report are based on the actual numbers reported to the Perinatal Data Collection. The true numbers of Aboriginal mothers who give birth in NSW and Aboriginal babies who are born in NSW are likely to be higher than shown and should therefore be interpreted with caution.
Source: Maternal and Child Health Register (SAPHaRI). Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence, NSW Ministry of Health.