The importance of injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Tables 3 and 4 show a consistent pattern of higher injury rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples compared with non-Aboriginal people. While the size of the differences should be treated with caution, due to the difficulties with the data, there is little doubt that injury is an important public health issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Table 3: Overview of injury-related deaths in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations, average number of deaths and rate ratios 1990-1992 and number of deaths 1994 (Australia excluding Queensland)

	1990-1992					1994
Type of injury death	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples		Non-Aboriginal		Ratio of age-adjusted rates:	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples		Non-Aboriginals
	Average number of deaths	% of all injury deaths	Average number of deaths	% of all injury deaths	A&TSI vs non-A&TSI rates:	Number of deaths	% of all injury deaths	Number of deaths	% of all injury deaths
Transport	75	41	1983	34	3.4	54	31	1668	31
Drowning	11	6	207	4	4.8	15	9	181	3
Poison: medications, etc	5	3	152	3	2.2	6	3	247	5
Poison: other substances	9	5	32	1	17.5	2	1	20	0
Falls	5	3	788	14	1.2	8	5	782	14
Fires, burns, scalds	7	4	112	2	10.5	8	5	104	2
Other unintentional	16	9	453	8	3.4	13	7	394	7
Self harm	22	12	1818	31	0.9	31	18	1769	33
Interpersonal violence	34	18	252	4	10.8	37	21	245	5
Total	184	100%	5797	100%	2.8	174	100%	5410	100%

Table 4: Overview of external causes related hospital separations among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Aboriginal populations, number of cases and rates (per 100,000 population), Australia (except NT), 1991/92.

Cause of injury[A]	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples		Non-Aboriginal		Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: Non-Aboriginal standardised rate ratio[B]	Excess hospital separations*
	Count	Age-adjusted rate	Count	Age-adjusted rate
Male
Transportation	661	614	30170	356	1.7	221
Drowning and submersion	7	4	481	6	0.7	-3
Pharmaceutical poisoning	159	119	5766	68	1.7	67
Non-pharmaceutical poisoning	89	53	2232	26	2.0	52
Falls	1013	1160	42643	518	2.2	448
Fires, burns, scalds	234	218	3588	42	5.1	172
Other unintentional	2132	2075	69863	824	2.5	1169
Self harm	159	146	5451	64	2.3	92
Interpersonal violence	1402	1433	11146	131	10.9	1250
Undetermined intent	70	70	742	9	8.0	60
Total	5926	5891	172082	2046	2.9	3529
Female
Transportation	329	284	15499	183	1.6	106
Drowning and submersion	8	4	198	2	1.9	4
Pharmaceutical poisoning	223	182	7292	87	2.1	110
Non-pharmaceutical poisoning	52	36	1428	17	2.1	27
Falls	736	916	49973	548	1.7	333
Fires, burns, scalds	128	104	1854	22	4.7	95
Other unintentional	1264	1247	27022	318	3.9	898
Self harm	213	186	6731	80	2.3	121
Interpersonal violence	1478	1353	2463	29	**	1443
Undetermined intent	31	29	416	5	5.9	26
Total	4460	4341	112876	1292	3.4	3162
Persons
Transportation	988	443	45669	271	1.6	322
Drowning and submersion	15	4	679	4	1.0	0
Pharmaceutical poisoning	382	152	13058	77	2.0	178
Non-pharmaceutical poisoning	141	44	3660	22	2.0	78
Falls	1749	1036	92616	547	1.9	776
Fires, burns, scalds	362	158	5442	32	4.9	266
Other unintentional	3396	1650	96885	574	2.9	2049
Self harm	372	166	12182	72	2.3	213
Interpersonal violence	2880	1388	13609	81	17.2	2689
Undetermined intent	101	49	1158	7	7.1	86
Total	10386	5091	284958	1686	3.0	6657

^[A] Cause of injury is based on standard aggregations of the ICD9 External Cause (E-code) classification. See data issues panel for details.
^[B] Rate ratios are ratios of all-ages rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Aboriginal rates. Age adjustment of rates was made by direct standardisation, taking the Australian population in 1991 (excluding the Northern Territory population) as the standard.
* Excess Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander hospital separations is the difference between the observed number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander separations and the expected number if the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations experienced the injury rates observed in the non-Aboriginal population. The sum of male and female excess hospital separations may not equal the excess hospital separations in the persons category due to the effect of rounding.
** Note: Interpersonal violence against 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 severely elevated due to the very low non-Aboriginal rate.