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