Hospitalisations of First Nations women

National Agreement on Closing the Gap Outcome 13: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and households are safe.

Increase in the number of women who are safe.

Decrease in rates of hospitalisation for family violence assaults for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women by relationship to perpetrator.

A low or decreasing rate of family violence hospitalisations is desirable. However, an increase in the rate may indicate an increase in reporting and/or an increase in the recording of a perpetrator by hospital staff.

2022–23

Number of hospitalisations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women aged 15 and over for assault, where the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim is a partner, parent or other family member.

Data element: Hospitalisation—assault injury
Data source: AIHW NHMD
Data source type: Administrative

Total number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women aged 15 and over in the population.

Data element: Person
Data source: ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians
Data source type: Estimates

This measure is expressed as a number per 100,000 people aged 15 years and over.

Inclusions (numerator): Hospitalisations for family violence-related assaults are based on the ICD-10-AM (various editions) (Australian Consortium for Classification Development 2017). Causes of injury are based on the first reported external cause as ‘Assault’ ICD-10-AM codes X85–Y09, where the principal diagnosis was ‘Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes’ (S00–T76 and T79). Family violence related assaults include assaults by a spouse/domestic partner, parent or other family member. Relationship of perpetrator to the victim is coded in the fifth digit of ICD-10-AM codes for ‘Assault’ X85–Y09 as follows: spouse/domestic partner, 0; parent, 1; other family member, 2. 
For more information about the scope related to family violence related injury, please see Injury in Australia, Technical notes - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (aihw.gov.au). 
Exclusions (numerator): To minimise double-counting hospitalisations for injuries, exclude: · admissions that are transfers from another hospital · admissions with rehabilitation procedures (where care type is not acute) Hospitalisations for Newborns without qualified days, Hospital boarders and Posthumous organ procurement are also excluded.
Rates are age-standardised using the direct method of age standardisation, with the 2001 Australian population, by 5-year age groups and one 10-year age group for 15-24 (up to 60+ years) as the standard population. Direct age-standardisation involves calculating a series of crude rates for individual age ranges, weighting each of these age ranges by their proportional contribution to a standard population, and summing the weighted ranges to derive the age-standardised rate.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rate: calculated based on estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population based on Series B projections. 
Non-Indigenous rate: calculated based on estimates of the non-Indigenous population derived as the difference between the total estimated resident population and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population projections. 

100,000 x (Numerator/Denominator)

For each financial year, nationally, by: 

• relationship to perpetrator
• sex
• state and territory.

Age standardisation is a standard methodology used to allow for comparisons between two groups with different age structures, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Australians. 

For some population groups, numbers may be too small to be reported on separately.
Not all people who have injuries or conditions as a result of family violence will seek hospital treatment, and of those that do, not all will disclose the cause (for example, assault) and/or the relationship to the perpetrator (for example, partner). The date reported is limited to hospitalisations for injury where the cause was recorded as assault and the relationship between the perpetrator and victim has been recorded as a family member.
For injury hospitalisations due to assault among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from July 2018 to June 2021, the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim was specified for 67.8.4% of records.