1. All injury deaths, Australia 1994

(ICD9 E-codes 800-899)

Table 1.1 Key indicators for all injury deaths

Indicator	Males	Females	Persons
Cases	5,089	2,100	7,189
Percent of all deaths	7.5%	3.5%	5.7%
Crude rate/100,000 pop	57.3	23.5	40.3
Age-adjusted rate/100,000 pop	58.9	21.3	39.7
Change in adj. rate since 1993	0%	4%	1%
Average years lost before age 75 yrs	34	25	31

Age and sex distribution

Injury rates continued to be highest for old age (75 plus years), with falls deaths in this age range accounting for 10% of all injury deaths (5% males, 23% females).
Overall, 36% of all injury deaths occurred to young people in the range 20-39 years, with young males accounting for 41% and females 25%.
Male injury death rates continue to be higher than female injury death rates for all age groups.

Although overall male injury rates were reasonably static, down less than 1% from 1993, there was a slight up-turn in the overall injury rate for females, up 4% from 1993.
Male injury rates were much higher than female rates for all age groups.
A set of targets for injury control was published in 1994 in the report "Better Health Outcomes for Australians"[1].The indicator for some of these targets is injury mortality and trends for these are shown in this Bulletin. For brevity, they are described as "BHOA targets".
The BHOA target for the year 2000 is to reduce injury rates by 20% of the 1992 rate of 42 injury deaths per 100,000. The age-adjusted rate 39.7 injury deaths per 100,000 recorded in 1994 was about 38% of the drop required to reach the target.
Since 1979 overall injury rates have fallen by almost 35%, with male rates falling by around 33% and female rates falling by almost 41%.

Injury rates in the NT were almost twice the national rate. In the period 1979-1994 the NT age-adjusted rates have fluctuated between a high of 199 per 100,000 in 1981 and a low of 85 per 100,000 in 1982. Since 1988 rates in the NT have fallen by almost 43% to around 88 per 100,000.
Although the Tasmanian rate continues to be significantly higher than the national rate, the 1994 rate was the lowest recorded since 1979, down 1% from 1993. Suicide and transport related deaths continue to account for most of this excess.
Victoria's age-adjusted rate of 32.3 deaths per 100,000 has been steadily decreasing since 1987 and is only marginally higher than the ACT's age-adjusted rate of 32.1 per 100,000 population. Victorian injury death rates were lower than the national rate for every major injury category in 1994, especially transport deaths (21% below national rate) and suicide (11% below national rate).
In 1993 the ACT recorded an exceptionally low age-adjusted rate of 19.4 injury deaths per 100,000. The 1994 age-adjusted rate of 32 injury deaths per 100,000 was a return to a more typical value. The reason for the unusually low number of injury death registrations in the ACT for 1993 is not clear.
The rates in both WA and Qld were also higher than the national rate. In Qld the excess was due mainly to higher rates of transport, suicide and falls deaths, while transport and poisoning (pharmaceutical and other) were higher in WA.

	Transport and suicide deaths continued to be the major contributors to the overall injury death rate in Australia in 1994. Again, as in 1993, 67% of all male injury deaths and 51% of female injury deaths were due to these two major causes. "Falls" was the only category for which female numbers (up 24% from 1993) exceeded male numbers (up 9%).

The upward trend in male suicide rates (up 17%) is in contrast to the downward trend in transport deaths (down 56%) in the period 1979-94. Slight rises in transport, suicide and falls deaths for females in 1994 accounted for the 4% rise in overall injury death rates.
	As has been observed in previous years, the proportions of different types of injury death varied with age. Drowning was prominent in the early childhood years, transport and suicide accounted for a large proportion of deaths among young adults and falls accounted for a large proportion of the deaths among the elderly.

1. Commonwealth of Australia. Better health outcomes for Australians. Canberra: Department of Human Services and Health, 1994.