Health Outcomes

This section was prepared by the First Nations Health Office with technical support by the area that prepares The Health of Queenslanders: Report of the Chief Health Officer Queensland. Data sources may differ from those used in the wider report and results may not be comparable. Please see technical documentation for additional information.

Life expectancy

Life expectancy at birth is a key summary measure of health that uses mortality and population data and provides a measure of how long on average babies born in certain years are expected to live if the same mortality patterns continued throughout their life.

In 2020–2022 (Figure 1):

• Life expectancy at birth for First Nations peoples in Queensland was 76.6 years for females and 72.9 years for males.
• Queensland life expectancy ranked 2nd among the jurisdictions for both females and males and was higher than the national average for both sexes.
• Nationally, life expectancy of First Nations peoples living in remote and very remote areas was 5.2 years shorter than those living in major cities for both females and males. This is likely to also be the case in Queensland (data not shown).¹

Figure 1: Life expectancy by state and territory for First Nations peoples, 2020–2022

Life expectancy: Closing the Gap

Life expectancy estimates for First Nations peoples are produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) every five years and are the official life expectancy estimates for the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population and the key data source for tracking progress towards Closing the Gap Target 1, Close the gap in life expectancy by 2031.

As part of a methodology review, ABS revised life expectancy at birth estimates for First Nations people for 2015–2017 using the same methodology as 2020–2022.² However, these estimates are still not completely comparable as they remain subject to changing mortality patterns and population identification and undercounts.

In 2020–2022, the gap in life expectancy between First Nations people and other Queenslanders was 7.0 years for females and 7.4 years for males.

First Nations life expectancy is increasing and the gap with other Queenslanders is decreasing. Despite these improvements, the gap is unlikely to close by 2031.

Figure 2. Estimated life expectancy over time for First Nations peoples and other Queenslanders

Mortality

Understanding mortality patterns for First Nations peoples helps to identify current and emerging causes of death in the population. Changes in the composition of mortality within a population and variations in cause of death, when compared to other population groups, can indicate areas of greater health need, or that require greater system responsiveness to address disparities in mortality.

In 2023 (Figure 3):

• There were 1,248 First Nations deaths registered in Queensland.
• The age-standardised mortality rate (ASR, or standardised rate) for First Nations peoples in Queensland was 8.4 per 1,000 persons compared to 5.4 per 1,000 persons for other Queenslanders.
• Infant mortality rates were higher for First Nations peoples than for other Queenslanders (5.7 and 4.0 per 1,000 live births, respectively).³

Mortality trends

In the last decade, the standardised mortality rate for First Nations peoples has been increasing, while the mortality rate among other Queenslanders has been slowly decreasing over the same period. Consequently, disparity in mortality measures have grown, both in absolute and relative terms. This is not the case for infant mortality, with both rates and the gap between First Nations people and other Queenslanders decreasing (Figure 3).³

Over the past decade (Figure 3):

• The standardised mortality rate per 1,000 persons increased by 10.5% (from 7.6 in 2014 to 8.4 in 2023).
• The median age at death increased by 4.8 years from 59.0 years in 2014 to 63.8 years in 2023.
• Over the same period the median age at death for other Queenslanders increased by 0.4 years from 80.9 years to 81.3 years.³

Figure 3: Mortality measures for First Nations peoples and other Queenslanders

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Causes of death

In 2023 (Figure 4):

• The leading cause of death for First Nations peoples, as for other Queenslanders, was ischaemic heart diseases, causing more than 1-in-10 deaths (10.5%).
• Malignant neoplasm of trachea, bronchus and lung was the second leading cause of death, followed by diabetes.
• The leading cause of death for First Nations males was ischaemic heart diseases, while for females it was diabetes.⁴

Figure 4: Leading causes of death First Nations people in Queensland in 2023

Hospitalisation

Hospitalisation at the population level reflects health need, accessibility, and admission practices.

In 2022–23:

• There were 186,467 admitted patient episodes of care for First Nations peoples in Queensland acute public and private hospitals. This represented 6.4% of all episodes of care.⁵
• The standardised all cause hospitalisation rate for First Nations peoples was 884.5 per 1,000 persons, which was 1.9 times that of other Queenslanders (475.8 per 1,000 persons).
• For males it was 797.8 per 1,000 persons, which was 1.8 times that of other Queenslanders (448.8 per 1,000 persons).
• For females it was 973.5 per 1,000 persons, which was 1.9 times that of other Queenslanders (504.8 per 1,000 persons).

Cause of hospitalisation

Hospitalisation rates can provide a measure of serious/acute illness in a population which require hospital treatment. They are also a measure of access and use of hospital services by people with such conditions. However, hospitalisation rates for a particular disease do not directly indicate the prevalence or incidence of a disease in the population.

Figure 5: Queensland hospital admission rates by ICD chapter, 2022–23

Potentially preventable hospitalisations

Potentially preventable hospitalisations (PPH) are episodes of care for conditions that could have been prevented through interventions and disease management in primary and community health care settings. The PPH rate is considered an indicator of access to timely and effective primary health care.

In 2022–23, Queensland First Nations residents had 15,407 PPH episodes of care in Queensland hospitals.⁵

• The First Nations’ age standardised PPH rate was 2.4 times higher than the rate for other Queenslanders (71.7 compared to 29.8 per 1,000 persons; Figure 6).
• For males it was 2.3 times higher than the rate for other Queenslanders (65.5 compared to 28.8 per 1,000 persons).
• For females it was 2.5 times higher than the rate for other Queenslanders (77.8 compared to 30.8 per 1,000 persons).

This disparity is in part a demonstration of the inequitable access to appropriate primary care and the increased prevalence of poor determinants of health, including physical, social and emotional and intergenerational determinants.

Figure 6: Potentially preventable hospitalisations, totals and selected conditions, 2022–23

Additional information

Section technical notes

• A record of every death in Australia is captured in Australian states and territories Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages (RBDM) and coded to a cause by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status of a deceased person is captured on the Death Registration Form (DRF) and, since 2015, deaths registered in Queensland used the Medical Certificate Cause of Death (MCCD) to establish Indigeneity. This led to an increase in the number of deaths identified as First Nations peoples. There was also a significant increase in the number of deaths registered in 2010 due to an outstanding death registration initiative by the Queensland RBDM.
• The National Agreement on Closing the Gap includes outcomes measures for healthy birth weight and life expectancy—figures are reported by the Productivity Commission and may differ to those reported in this report based on other methods.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) mortality rate estimates use the ABS calculated ERP for First Nations and other Queenslanders.

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