Injuries affecting men in Australia: A closer look

In this section we compare the relative rates of injury hospitalisations and injury-related deaths between men and women. We calculate a ratio of crude rates, i.e. the rate for adult men divided by the rate for adult women. In relative terms a ratio value higher than 1 indicates a type of injury that occurs more frequently in men than in women. 

We note that injuries in general occur more frequently in men, as the relative ratio across all injury hospitalisations is 1.18. In other words, for every 100 injury hospitalisations among women, there are 118 for men. 

Here we examine the values of this ratio for specific causes of injury, both for injury hospitalisations and deaths. 

Men are more likely to be hospitalised for most causes of injury

For most causes of injury, the ratio of rates for men and women was above 1, indicating men were more likely to be hospitalised for most injuries. Only intentional self-harm and falls were more likely to cause hospitalisations among women (Figure 13). 

In 2021-22, men were over 3 times more likely than women to be injured by a contact with an inanimate object (including tools, machinery, sharp objects such as knives, or blunt objects such as sports equipment). 

Men were also more than 2 twice as likely to be hospitalised for injuries caused by transport accidents, contributing to transport being the third leading cause of injury hospitalisation among men in 2021-22. 

Figure 13: Ratio of injury hospitalisation rates between men and women by external cause of injury, Australia, 2021-22,

Notes:

1. The ratio is calculated by dividing the crude rate of injury hospitalisations in adult males by the rate in adult females. 
2. The dotted line signifies a ratio value of 1, where the rates in men and women are equal
3. The thickness of the bar represents the total number of injury hospitalisations in men, with thicker bars denoting a high number of hospitalisations for this external cause
4. Only includes hospitalisations where the patient age was greater than or equal to 19, and where sex was recorded as male.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD).

Injury deaths from transport accidents and suicides are over 3 times more common in men

Similarly to injury hospitalisations, injury related deaths are more common in men than women. This relative difference is more pronounced in the case of injury deaths, with men being 1.6 times as likely as women to die of an injury. 

Across causes in 2021-22, the biggest difference between sexes was in injuries caused by contact with inanimate objects, where injury deaths were over 6 times more likely among men than women (Figure 14.) Men were 5 times more likely than women to die by drowning and submersion, representing the second highest value of this ratio. However, while the impact of these two causes is strongly biased towards men, we note that these causes of injury deaths are less common overall (0.9% and 2.6% of the total, respectively).

Transport-related injury deaths were about 3.8 times more likely in men than in women, and suicide deaths 3.2 times more likely. These two causes were also more common causes of injury death overall, respectively the third and second most common cause of injury related deaths in 2021-22. 

Figure 14: Ratio of injury death rates between men and women by external cause of injury, Australia, 2021-22,

Notes:

1. The ratio is calculated by dividing the crude rate of injury death in adult males by the rate in adult females. 
2. Several external causes of injuries are omitted from this figure, as the ratio calculation was unreliable with small injury death numbers 
3. The dotted line signifies a ratio value of 1, where the rates in men and women are equal
4. The thickness of the bar represents the total number of injury deaths in men, with thicker bars denoting a high number of deaths for this external cause
5. Only includes injury deaths where age at the time of death was greater than or equal to 19, and where sex was recorded as male.

Sources: AIHW National Mortality Database (NMD).