National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood Development

This is the second annual performance report for the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood Development. It provides the latest available information, as well as trends on the 6 health-related indicators in the partnership agreement. Key findings include:-The gap in low birthweight rates between babies of Indigenous and non-Indigenous mothers narrowed substantially between 2000 and 2010.-Indigenous mothers were more likely than non-Indigenous mothers to have smoked during pregnancy, and accessed antenatal care less often.-The infant mortality rate for Indigenous infants between 2001 and 2011 declined by 55%, but remained almost twice as high as for non-Indigenous infants.