Notes on the data: Premature mortality by selected cause - 0 to 74 years

Deaths from suicide and self-inflicted injuries, people aged 0 to 44 years, 45 to 74 years and 0 to 74 years, 2017 to 2021

Policy context: Suicide is a major public health issue and the 15th leading cause of death. Although death by suicide is relatively uncommon (approximately 1.7% of deaths in 2022), the human costs are substantial and can impact broadly across communities [1]. As such, suicide prevention is a key focus for both government agencies and non-government organisations [2].

The age-standardised suicide rate in 2010 was 10.5 deaths per 100,000 population; by 2022 it was higher, at 12.3 deaths per 100,000 population. Males were just over three times more likely to die from suicide than females across 2022. In 2022, females aged 85 years and over had the highest age-specific suicide rate for the first time since data were recorded, with a rate of 10.6 deaths per 100,000 females (comprising 4.4% of female suicides). For males, the highest age-specific suicide rate was also in the 85 years and over age group, with 32.7 suicides per 100,000 population (comprising 2.9% of suicides of males) [1].For both males and females, the highest suicide rates under 85 years of age were in the 45 to 49 year age group, which was also the age group with the highest proportion of males suicides (10.7%); for females, the highest proportion was in the 25 to 29 year age group (9.4%).

For 2017 to 2021, 92.2% of deaths from suicide were premature - 92.3% for males and 91.9% for females: these and other details are available here.

The indicator Potential Years of Life Lost (click here ) adds a further dimension to the data on premature death, in particular from these causes, which include deaths of many young people, adding to the number of PYLL.

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Cause of death, Australia, 2022. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/latest-release#; last accessed 4 December 2023
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Suicides, Australia, 2010. (ABS Cat. no. 3309.0). Canberra: ABS; 2012.

Notes: There are concerns regarding the quality of data on suicides, some of which may have been counted as deaths from other accidental, ill-defined or unspecified causes rather than suicide; and numbers are subject to revision as coronial enquires are completed.

International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes: X60-X84, Y87.0

For detailed data files released since 2007, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has applied a staged approach to the coding of cause of death which affects the number of records available for release at any date. In general, the latest year's data are designated preliminary, the second latest as revised and the data for the remaining years as final. For further information about the ABS revisions process see the following and related sites: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3303.0Explanatory+Notes12012.

Data published here are from the following releases: 2017, final; 2018, revised; and 2019, 2020 and 2021, preliminary.

Geography: Data available by Population Health Area, Local Government Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Quintiles within PHNs, and Remoteness Area

Numerator: Deaths from suicide and self-inflicted injuries at ages 0 to 44 years, 45 to 74 years or 0 to 74 years

Denominator: Population aged 0 to 44 years, 45 to 74 years or 0 to 74 years

Detail of analysis: Average annual indirectly age-standardised rate per 100,000 population (aged 0 to 44 years, 45 to 74 years or 0 to 74 years); and/or indirectly age-standardised ratio, based on the Australian standard.

Source: Data compiled by PHIDU from deaths data based on the 2017 to 2021 Cause of Death Unit Record Files supplied by the Australian Coordinating Registry and the Victorian Department of Justice, on behalf of the Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the National Coronial Information System. The population is the average of the ABS Estimated Resident Population (ERP) for Australia, 30 June 2017 to 30 June 2021.