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

Deaths from road traffic injuries, persons aged 0 to 74 years, 2017 to 2021

Policy context: Road trauma is a significant contributor to the high rates of death from injury. In 2021, there were 1,130 road deaths, a rate of 4.4 deaths per 100,000 population [1]. The number of deaths from road traffic crashes per 100,000 persons fell from 6.8 in 2009 to 6.1 in 2010 and to 4.3 in 2020, before a small increase to 4.4, in 2021 [1]. As a result, although over the decade to 2021 the annual rate of fatalities per population declined by 23.7%, the decline over the decade to 2023, at 10.4% was less than half that [1]. This compares to a rate of 30.4 in 1970 [3]. It is of note that there has been slow progress in reducing the number of injuries.

People living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of Australia were almost three and a half (3.44) times likely to die prematurely from traffic injuries than were those from the most advantaged areas. Over this period (2017 to2021), death rates also increased with increasing remoteness, from 2.7 premature deaths per 100,000 population for those living in the Major Cities areas, to 7.2 in the Inner Regional areas, 9.5 in Outer Regional, 11.3 in Remote and 17.9 in the Very Remote areas. These data can be accessed here.

For 2017 to 2021, 86.6% of deaths from road traffic injuries were premature – 88.9% for males and 79.9% for females: these and other details are available here.

The indicator Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL, 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

Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE), 2018, Road trauma. Australia 2017 statistical summary, BITRE, Canberra ACT.
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. Available from https://www.bitre.gov.au/statistics/safety; last accessed 28 March 2022

Notes: International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10)(ICD-10) codes: V00-V06.[1], V09.2, V09.3, V10-V18.[4,5,9], V19.[4,5,6,9], V20-V28.[4,5,9], V29.[ 4,5,6,9], V30-V38. [5,6,7,9], V39.[4,5,6,9], V40-V48[5,6,7,9], V49[4,5,6,9], V50-V48.[5,6,7,9], V59.[4,5,6,9], V60-V68.[5,6,7,9], V69.[4,5,6,9], V70-V78.[5,6,7,9], V79.[4,5,6,9], V81.1, V82.1, V82.9, V83-V86.[0,1,2,3], V87, V89.2, V89.3

For detailed data files released since 2007, the 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 road traffic injuries at ages 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 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.