The changing pattern of coronary heart disease in Australia

In this paper we describe a method for constructing long series of comparable mortality statistics from published figures that are subject to periodic changes in coding practice. The case discussed in some detail is that of Australian coronary heart disease mortality 1931-1985, the coding of which has been liable to alteration on four occasions due to revisions to the procedures of the International Classification of Diseases. Reference is made to comparable work on US figures and it is shown that the Australian data require relatively smaller adjustments.