Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Background Global life expectancy is approximately 70 years (2010), with Norheim et al. (2015) defining premature death as death before age 70 years. Indigenous people experience poorer health outcomes than their non-Indigenous counterparts, including experiencing a disproportionate burden of disease. A reduction of premature death could be an appropriate quantitative target to align with improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people. This presentation examines national death and the risk of death versus age by Indigenous status. Methods We analyse premature death data, and the risk of death versus age by Indigenous status. Risk of death is averaged over a 5-year period to smooth any sudden changes. For low-income, lowermiddle-income, upper-middle-income, and high-income countries as well as 1970 and 2010 risk of death versus age, we cite Norheim et al. (2015) and for death risk ratios regarding commercial tobacco use examining all-cause death, we cite Banks et al. (2015). Results Indigenous people experience disproportionately poor health outcomes in comparison to their non-Indigenous counterparts. The risk of premature death among Indigenous people is comparable to rates in middle-low income countries worldwide. Notably, smoking was one of the single major risk factors contributing to excess premature death. Conclusion Death rates have generally been falling, but there continues to be significant potential for change, especially in reducing Indigenous premature death and non-communicable disease death. One of the most important risk factor to address premature death is commercial tobacco use. Fortunately, quitting and preventing tobacco uptake works. If efforts to improve health and wellbeing are intensified, particularly working with Indigenous people, then it is possible to significantly reduce premature death. Reducing this premature death rate will be challenging, but achievable.