The Australian Institute of Health and Welfares new report, Trends in hospitalised injury, Australia 1999-00 to 2014-15, highlights that after adjusting for population changes, on average there was a 1% increase in injury hospitalisations every year, from 327,000 hospitalisations in 1999-00 to 480,000 in 2014-15.
As indicated in the table below, the leading causes of injury hospitalisations in Australia in 2014-15 were falls, exposure to inanimate mechanical forces and transport crashes. When comparing the rates of these injuries hospitalisations in 2014-15 to that of 1999-00, accidental poisoning (3% increase per year on average), exposure to animate mechanical forces (2.9%) and falls (1.8%) experienced the most significant changes in their hospitalisation rate over the 18 year time period.
| Number | Percentage of injury hospitalisations | |
| Transport crash | 58,591 | 12.1 |
| Accidental drowning and submersion | 582 | 0.1 |
| Accidental poisoning | 10,092 | 2.1 |
| Falls | 198,576 | 41.1 |
| Thermal causes | 5,840 | 1.2 |
| Exposure to inanimate mechanical forces | 68,618 | 14.2 |
| Exposure to animate mechanical forces | 20,156 | 4.2 |
| Intentional self-harm | 28,119 | 5.8 |
| Assault | 19,025 | 3.9 |
| Other external causes of accidental injury | 65,689 | 13.6 |
| Unintentional intent | 4,822 | 1 |
| Other or missing | 3,586 | 0.8 |
| Total | 483,678 | 100 |
Table 1. Number and percentage of injury area hospitalisations in Australia in 2014-15.
Population groups highlighted in the report as experiencing a higher burden of injury hospitalisations include;
- People aged 65 and over (contributed to 30% of all injury cases)
- People living in remote areas of Australia (1 in 27 people living in very remote areas required hospitalisation compared to 1 in 54 residing in major cities)
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (twice as likely to be hospitalised compared to non-Indigenous people in WA).
For further information regarding Australian injury hospitalisations, click here to read the full AIHW report.
Reference:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Trends in hospitalised injury, Australia 1999-00 to 2014-15 [Internet]. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; 2018 [cited 2018 May 31]. Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/injury/trends-in-hospitalised-injury-1999-00-to-2014-15