Injury in Australia

While external cause of injury is unable to be ascertained for ED presentations (please see technical notes for details), we present a description of where the primary reason for presentation was recorded as an injury. Males presented to ED with injuries more than females (supplementary data table ED1) however most notably ED presentation patterns by age differed to those for hospitalisations or deaths (Figure 5). 

Younger people were more likely to present to ED for injuries than adults, with crude rates of presentation for 0–4-year-olds of about 10,800 per 100,000 persons. This dipped to about 6,000 per 100,000 persons for 25–44-year-olds before rising to about 6,600 for people aged 65+. Altogether there were around 792,000 presentations for people aged under 24 years in 2022–23 (about 43% of the total 1.9 million ED presentations), compared to about 446,000 presentations in 25–44-year-olds (24%).

Figure 5: Number and crude rate (per 100,000 persons) of ED presentations for injury, by age group, Australia, 2022–23

Note: Columns are case counts, while the line graph represents crude rates per 100,000.

Sources: AIHW National Non-admitted Patient Emergency Department Care Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

For more detail, see supplementary data table ED1.