Injury

Introduction

Injury is a broad category of health outcomes which includes many different types of physical trauma. Injuries are classified by the type of injury and the external cause of the injury when known. Most hospitalisations for injury are caused by falls, contact with objects, transport (including road traffic accidents) and self-harm.¹

This section reports hospitalisation and mortality information for all injuries, and two common external causes—falls and road traffic accidents. Nationally in 2022–23, falls and transport accidents accounted for 43% and 11% of all injury hospitalisations, respectively.¹

Injury burden

Nationally, injury accounted for 7.9% of the burden of disease in 2024² and 6.4% of disease expenditure in 2022–23.³

For selected injuries included in this section, the number of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and age-standardised DALY rate (ASR or standardised rate) for years of healthy life lost nationally in 2024 were:

• 456,554 (standardised rate 16.7 per 1,000 persons) due to injuries overall
• 95,522 (standardised rate 2.8 per 1,000 persons) due to falls.

For road traffic injuries:

• Motor vehicle occupants: 34,375 (standardised rate 1.3 per 1,000 persons)
• Motorcyclists: 12,793 (standardised rate 0.5 per 1,000 persons)
• Pedestrian: 6,591 (standardised rate 0.2 per 1,000 persons)
• Pedal cyclists: 2,661 (standardised rate 0.1 per 1,000 persons).²

Nationally in 2022–23, all injury accounted for $10.996 billion of disease expenditure, including $5.066 billion for falls and $914 million for road traffic injuries.³