DATA FROM CORONIAL FILES

The NCIS contains data fields (both free text and coded) and full text reports.

Data fields include:

• Name*
• Date of notification of death
• Age
• Sex
• Date of birth*
• Place of usual residence*
• Period of residence in Australia
• Country of birth
• Employment status
• Usual occupation
• If a work-related incident
• Occupation at the time of incident
• Industry at the time of incident
• Marital status
• Indigenous identification
• Time/location of incident
• Activity at time of incident
• Intent (both suspected at time death reported and final)
• Mechanism of injury (primary, secondary and tertiary)
• Object or substance involved (primary, secondary and tertiary)
• Medical cause of death
• Where the death is related to a motor vehicle accident
• vehicle type
• driver/passenger
• context
• user

Full text reports include:

• Police narrative of circumstances*
• Autopsy report*
• Toxicology report*
• Finding*

The items marked with an asterisk (*) are identifying data items which are only available to Level 1 users.

The NCIS does NOT contain:

• Transcripts of inquests
• Photographic evidence
• Witness statements

The data set commences from July 2000 from all states and territories (January 2001 from Queensland).

Certain full text reports may not yet be available on the NCIS due to the fact they are not able to be provided in an electronic format. An indication of which documents are/are not yet available on the NCIS can be accessed here. It should be noted that reports from country regions are also sometimes not available.

DATA FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES

The NCIS also contains the following additional coded fields provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics*:

• ICD-10 Cause of Death codes (underlying and multiple cause codes).
• ASGC (Australian Standard Geographical Classification) Codes - used to code the usual residence of the deceased person. 

*These codes have been provided to the NCIS by the ABS, and as such are stored on a separate screen for each case. Further information about each of the codes is provided below:

ICD -10 Cause of Death Codes
The International Classification of Diseases and Health Related Problems (Tenth Revision) (ICD-10) is the classification system used by the ABS to code cause of death.

The extensive nature of ICD enables classification of causes of death at various levels of detail. The underlying cause of death is coded, as are a maximum of 20 multiple causes.

Note the underlying cause of death will also appear within the multiple causes section.

Information about ICD-10 codes and the classification structure can be downloaded from the WHO website at www.who.int/classifications/icd/en

ASGC (Australian Standard Geographical Classification) Codes
ASGC is used by the ABS for the collection and dissemination of geographically classified statistics. The ABS encourages the use of the ASGC by other organisations to improve the comparability and usefulness of statistics generally.

ASGC is used to determine the usual residence of deceased persons.  Address information is used to code to Statistical Local Area (SLA) level within the State or Territory.

The ASGC is updated on an annual basis with a date of effect of 1 July each year.  It is therefore recommended that the relevant ASGC edition for the time period being investigated is noted. The ASGC data sets are available from the ABS web site at www.abs.gov.au under the section titled “Methods, Classifications, Concepts and Standards” – Classifications and Work Manuals.