The death rate among children and adolescents from Aboriginal and other indigenous groups in Australia has fallen over the past decade, a report has found. However, indigenous people aged between 1 year and 20 years are still twice as likely as other Australians in this age group to die, it says.

The report highlights the scale of the challenge faced by Australian federal and state governments, which last year committed themselves to closing, within a generation, the 17 year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

The push to …