Overview

• Injury-related hospitalisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• Key risks
• Injury-related hospitalisation of non-Aboriginals
• Comparative patterns of injury

Injury-related hospitalisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Figure 1: Percentage contribution of specific causes of injury to total sex-specific age-adjusted rate of injury-related hospitalisation among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Australia (except NT), 1991/92.

Key risks

Males accounted for 57 percent of the cases. Male rates of hospitalisation were higher than those of females except for drowning and submersion, unintentional poisoning by pharmaceuticals, and self-harm.

Table 4: Overview of injury-related hospitalisations among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Aboriginals populations, Australia (except NT) 1991/92

Cause of Injury+	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples		Non-Aboriginals
	Number of cases	Age-adjusted rate (per 100,000)	Number of cases	Age-adjusted rate (per 100,000)	Ratio of age-adjusted rates: A&TSI peoples to non-Aboriginals++	Excess number of A&TSI hospitalisations*
Male
Transportation	661	614	30,170	356	1.7	221
Drowning and submersion	7	4	481	6	0.7	-3
Pharmaceutical poisoning	159	119	5,766	68	1.7	67
Non-pharmaceutical poisoning	89	53	2,232	26	2.0	52
Falls	1,013	1,160	42,643	518	2.2	448
Fires, burns, scalds	234	218	3,588	42	5.1	172
Other unintentional	2,132	2,075	69,863	824	2.5	1,169
Self harm	159	146	5,451	64	2.3	92
Interpersonal violence	1,402	1,433	11,146	131	10.9	1,250
Undetermined intent	70	70	742	9	8.0	60
Total	5,926	5,891	172,082	2,046	2.9	3,529
Female
Transportation	329	284	15,499	183	1.6	106
Drowning and submersion	8	4	198	2	1.9	4
Pharmaceutical poisoning	223	182	7,292	87	2.1	110
Non-pharmaceutical poisoning	52	36	1,428	17	2.1	27
Falls	736	916	49,973	548	1.7	333
Fires, burns, scalds	128	104	1,854	22	4.7	95
Other unintentional	1,264	1,247	27,022	318	3.9	898
Self harm	213	186	6,731	80	2.3	121
Interpersonal violence	1,478	1,353	2,463	29	**	1,443
Undetermined intent	31	29	416	5	5.9	26
Total	4,460	4,341	112,876	1,292	3.4	3,162
Persons
Transportation	988	443	45,669	271	1.6	322
Drowning and submersion	15	4	679	4	1.0	0
Pharmaceutical poisoning	382	152	13,058	77	2.0	178
Non-pharmaceutical poisoning	141	44	3,660	22	2.0	78
Falls	1,749	1,036	92,616	547	1.9	776
Fires, burns, scalds	362	158	5,442	32	4.9	266
Other unintentional	3,396	1,650	96,885	574	2.9	2,049
Self harm	372	166	12,182	72	2.3	213
Interpersonal violence	2,880	1,388	13,609	81	17.2	2,689
Undetermined intent	101	49	1,158	7	7.1	86
Total	10,386	5,091	284,958	1,686	3.0	6,657

⁺Cause of injury is based on standard aggregations of the ICD9 External Cause (E-code) classification. See Definition Box in subsequent sections of the report for details of E-code ranges.
⁺⁺ Rate ratio is calculated by dividing the age-adjusted rate of hospitalisation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by the age-adjusted rate of hospitalisation of the non-Aboriginal population. Age-adjustment of rates was by the direct method of standardisation, taking the Australian population in 1991 (excluding the Northern Territory population) as the reference.
* Excess hospitalisations is the difference between the observed number of hospitalisations and the expected number if the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experienced the hospitalisation rates observed in the non-Aboriginal population. The sum of male and female excess hospitalisations may not equal the persons total due to the effect of rounding.
** Note: Interpersonal violence in non-Aboriginal women is known to be under-reported. Comparison of rates between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal women should be treated with great caution. The rate ratio in this cell is 46.0 but this may be significantly inflated due to the artifactually low non-Aboriginal rate.

Injury-related hospitalisation of non-Aboriginals

There was a total of 284,958 injury-related hospitalisations among non-Aboriginal people in Australia, excluding the Northern Territory, in 1991/92. The distribution of these cases according to the major causes of injury is presented in Table 4. The most common causes of injury-related hospitalisation among non-Aboriginals are: falls and transport-related injuries. As was the case with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, a large proportion of cases (34%) were attributed to other unintentional causes.

Males accounted for 60 percent of the cases. Male rates of hospitalisation were higher than those of females except for unintentional poisoning by pharmaceuticals, falls, and self-harm.

Comparative patterns of injury

The age distributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Aboriginal populations are markedly different. Comparisons are, therefore, made using age-adjusted rates. The major observations are:

• overall, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rate of injury-related hospitalisation is three times higher than that of non-Aboriginals;

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' hospitalisation rates are higher than the non-Aboriginal rate for each major cause of injury except drowning among males;

• the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rate of hospitalisation for interpersonal violence was 17 times higher than the non-Aboriginal rate--although the reported relative risk for females of 46 should be treated with caution (see last footnote to Table 4);

• if the rates of injury-related hospitalisation experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples could be reduced to those experienced by non-Aboriginals, there would be 6,657 fewer hospitalisations per year among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The following sections of the report examine specific causes of injury in greater detail.