What do Australians die from?

Death is not wholly attributable to disease, injury or health-related risk factors (such as smoking). It is well established that non-medical factors, such as social determinants, play a role in a person’s life and death (WHO 2024; AIHW 2022). Since 2017, information on some of these factors (described as psychosocial risk factors) has been collected for coroner-referred deaths (ABS 2019). Deaths are referred to a coroner in circumstances where: the death was a result of an accident or injury; the identity of the person is unknown; they were in custody or care; the death was health care-related; the person died unexpectedly; or the cause of death is not known.

In 2022, more than 23,000 deaths were certified by a coroner. Of these more than 40% were due to (an underlying) external cause, such as falls, road traffic accidents, poisoning, and suicide. Information from police, pathology and coroner reports can provide details of the non-medical circumstances that were experienced by the person and were thought to have contributed to the death. Understanding these circumstances can highlight the need to implement or improve social policies or interventions for specific groups of people.

Psychosocial factors can include long-standing and unmodifiable circumstances such as negative events in a person’s childhood, history of self-harm or care needs due to disability. Other more temporary factors, such as fights within a primary support group, legal proceedings or unemployment, could also be identified as contributing to a person’s death.

Looking at psychosocial factors more broadly as determinants of health, we can begin to understand these circumstances and how they affect death. In this report, psychosocial factors have been categorised into 14 specific groups, including for example: housing; economic and education; intimate partner issues; support systems; and other community and safety issues. Examples of these contexts are provided below (see Classification of health conditions in the Technical notes for a more detailed list).