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, 2018 to 2022

Policy context: Suicide is a major public health issue and the 15th leading cause of death in 2022 within Australia. Although death by suicide is relatively uncommon (3,249 people died by suicide 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 12.6 deaths per 100,000 population.

In 2022 death by suicide was the 11th leading cause of death for males and the 26th leading cause of death for females [1]. Suicide rates for males increased in 2022 by 2.6% from 2021, but decreased by 2.3% for females, over the same time period [1]. The median age of death by suicide for males in 2022 was 46 years and slightly younger for females at 44.1 years of age [1]. In 2022, young and middle-aged people (aged 15-44 years) were more likely to die by suicide, loosing on average 35.6 years of life [1].

For 2018 to 2022, 91.7% of deaths from suicide were premature – 91.8% for males and 91.4% 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: 2018, 2019 and 2020, final; and 2021 and 2022, 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 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.