9. Other unintentional injury deaths, Australia 1993

• Age and sex distribution
• Trends in death rates
• State and Territory differences

• A diverse group of injuries.
• Rates for most types have tended to decline.

Table 9.1 Key indicators

Age and sex distribution

This category includes many types of injury death. The commonest types for infants were suffocation and choking, followed by being struck by a falling object, or injured by machinery. Through most of adult life, electrocution, machinery injury, falling objects and mechanical suffocation were prominent. These types are known to be work-related in a high proportion of cases. In old age, choking on food and effects of environmental heat were relatively common.

Trends in death rates

Male rates have tended to decline over the period shown. There was a very small rise in the rate between 1992 and 1993. Certain sub-types of "other unintentional" injury deaths are known to be work-related in a large proportion of cases.[4] The incidence of these sub-types has declined at about the same rate as other sub-types since 1979. However, they have declined more rapidly than other sub-types since 1988. The number of accidental firearm deaths continued to decline (n=18). Only in 1991 were fewer electrocutions recorded than in 1993 (n=51). Large changes in deaths coded to certain types of asphyxia, and a large rise in the number of deaths coded to late effects of injury, may reflect changes in classification rather than changes in occurrence.

State and Territory differences

No State or Territory rate differed significantly from the national rate in 1993. The rate for the NT was relatively high in 1993. It had, however, declined a long way towards the national rate from very high rates (around 20/100,000) a decade earlier. Rates in Figure 9.3 are based on place of death registration. For the ACT, the rate based on place of usual residence was one-third lower than this. Two of 8 deaths registered in the ACT were non-residents, and no ACT residents died of causes in this category outside the ACT. The difference between the two types of rates was small for other jurisdictions.