Injury causes and age

Different age groups can be affected by different injury risk factors. This is partly due to the life stages a person goes through, including their physical development; health status; socioeconomic area; lifestyle and activities a person is involved in (Chau et al 2009).

For hospitalisations in 2022–23 (Figure 10):

  • Updated

    Falls were commonest among those aged 75+ (46% of reported falls) followed by those aged under 15 (10% of reported falls)

  • Updated

    3 in 10 transport injury hospitalisations occurred among 15-29 year-olds (28%)

  • Updated

    Accidental poisoning mainly affected the very young (0-to-4-year-olds) and the elderly (80 years and older)

  • Updated

    Most assault-related injury hospitalisations occurred among 15-to-49-year olds (78%)

For injury deaths in 2020–21:

  • Updated

    Transport related deaths were highest for 20-24-year-olds (130 deaths)

  • Updated

    Choking and suffocation was the second leading cause for persons aged 85 and over (around 530 cases or a rate of 98 deaths per 100,000)

  • Updated

    Suicide was the leading cause for those aged between 15 and 64

Figure 10: Interactive ranking of causes of injuries by age, Australia, 2022–23

Figure 10 shows the top 10 ranked causes of injury hospitalisations and deaths, by sex and age group.

Notes:

  1. Rankings are presented from highest to lowest by crude rate per 100,000 population and show the number of cases for each age group.
  2. Intentional self-harm hospitalisation cases are not shown for the 0–4 and 5–14 age groups due to the difficulty in assigning intent to the actions of young children. Elsewhere, intentional self-harm statistics are shown for a combined 0–14 age group.
  3. Suicide rates in the 5–14 age group are based on suicides recorded for the 0–14 age group due to the difficulty in assigning intent to the action of younger children.
  4. Injuries due to ‘other intentional causes’ are not included in the top 10 displayed categories.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, AIHW National Mortality Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables H2 and D2.

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