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

Deaths from COVID-19, people aged 0 to 74 years, 2018 to 2022

Policy context: Australia reported its first cases of COVID-19 on the 25th of January 2020, with the first death from COVID-19 occurring on the 1st of March 2020 [1].

Australia had high vaccination rates, but still saw significant cases and deaths caused by COVID-19 [1]. COVID-19 has highlighted the fragility of health care provision and the importance of the social determinants of health [2]. It has highlighted the vulnerability of our ageing populations, not just from the biological effects of the virus, but also from social isolation, socioeconomic vulnerability, and concurrent chronic illnesses [2]. The pandemic continues to have direct and indirect health impacts for people, as well as the health system (and its workforce) [1]. Australia experienced increased mortality during 2022 which was the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic [3].

The number of deaths in the 2018 to 2022 data in this publication include 124 premature deaths in 2020 (out of a total of 900 deaths at all ages from COVID-19), 442 in 2021 (out of a total of 1,122) and 1,863 in 2022 (out of a total of 9,859).

People living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of Australia were over two and a half (2.78) times likely to die prematurely from COVID-19 than were those from the most advantaged areas [4]. Over this period (2018 to 2022), death rates within Australia varied with remoteness, from the highest in the Major Cities to the lowest in the Remote areas, with the second highest rate in Very Remote areas. The rates were 2.4 premature deaths per 100,000 population for those living in the Major Cities areas, 1.4 in both the Inner and Outer Regional areas, 1.3 in Remote areas and 2.0 in the Very Remote areas [4].

For 2018 to 2022, 20.4% of deaths from COVID-19 were premature – 23.4% for males and 16.7% for females: these and other details are available here.

References

Parliament of Australia. The Australian Health System, COVID-19: impacts on health and the Australian health system. Available from: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook47p/PandemicHealthSystem#:~:text=The COVID-19 pandemic continues,numbers of cases and deaths; last accessed 18 September 2024.
Blecher, G. Blashki, GA, and Judkins, S. Crisis as opportunity: how COVID-19 will reshape the Australian Health system. Med J Aust. 2020. Available from: https://doi.org/10.5694/mja2.50730; last accessed 18 September 2024.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. Causes of Death, Australia. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/latest-release; last accessed 18 September 2024.
PHIDU (www.phidu.torrens.edu.au) based on 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; 2018 to 2022.

Notes: Deaths due to COVID-19 are coded to newly-introduced International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes U07.1, U07.2 and U10.9 using rules in accordance with the most current advice from the World Health Organization.

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: 2018, 2019 and 2020, final; and 2021 and 2022, preliminary.

Geography: Data available by Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Remoteness Area

Numerator: Deaths from COVID-19, people aged 0 to 74 years

Denominator: Population aged 0 to 74 years

Detail of analysis: Average annual indirectly age-standardised rate per 100,000 population (aged 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 2018 to 2022 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 2018 to 30 June 2022.