Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 5—Population 173
C4.6 CUMULATIVE CAUSE OF DEATH RATIOS, Australia—1907 to 1998
Source: CBCS Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, various issues; CBCS Demography
Bulletins; ABS Causes of Death, Australia (3302.0), various issues.
C4.7 INFANT MORTALITY RATE, Australia—1901 to 1999
Rate(a)
125
100
75
50
25
0
1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001
(a) Rate per 1,000 live births.
Source: CBCS 1908; ABS 1986; ABS Deaths, Australia (3302.0), various issues.
Lifestyle effects such as the effects of diet,
smoking, drinking, driving etc. are much greater
in degenerative causes of death than in deaths
caused by infectious disease. Cancer, heart
disease and stroke accounted for one in five
deaths in 1901 and now account for more than
two-thirds.
This transformation has been a function of many
things—improved sanitation, better diets,
education, improved therapeutic measures,
advances in drug therapy etc. The downturn in
death from stroke and heart disease in the last
thirty years is evident in graph C4.6. This has
been due to both lifestyle changes (reduced
smoking, increased action-oriented leisure,
improved diets) as well as medical advances
(the infrastructure of intensive care units,
heart bypass surgery, better detection of
heart disease etc.). It has had the important
effect of improving the life expectancy
among the older population. For the century
preceding the early 1970s the bulk of
improvement in Australian life expectancy
had come about through a decrease in
infant, child and, to a lesser extent, maternal
mortality. In 1901 more than 1 in 10 babies
born in Australia died before they reached
their first birthday. Graph C4.7, however,
shows how this was drastically reduced over