Australian Centre for Monitoring Population Health

Conditions that affect the bones, muscles and joints and certain connective tissues such as tendons, ligaments, and cartilage are known as musculoskeletal conditions. These include long-term (chronic) conditions such as back problems, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and juvenile arthritis.

This report and related web articles are regularly updated with data from a range of sources. There are differences in the source year and frequency of publication. For more information, see technical notes. 

Conditions that affect the bones, muscles and joints and certain connective tissues are known as musculoskeletal conditions. These conditions include long-term (chronic) conditions such as back problems, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis or osteopenia, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and juvenile arthritis.

Childhood is an important time for healthy development, learning, and establishing the foundations for future wellbeing. This article focuses on key health issues that children face.

Youth is a key transition period in a person’s life. The foundations for future health and wellbeing are also laid down at this time.

This article focuses on key health issues that adolescents and young adults face.

Most Australians do not meet the Australian Dietary Guidelines and consume diets high in discretionary foods, sugar, salt and fat, yet not enough fruit and vegetables. Dietary risk factors are a leading cause of ill health and contribute to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. This article provides an overview of Australians’ consumption of foods and drinks, and selected nutrients, and the health impacts of dietary risk factors.

Overweight or obesity is the leading risk factor for many preventable chronic conditions, including heart disease, some cancers and type 2 diabetes.

Over the last decade, the proportion of adults living with obesity has increased. This web report explores the number of Australians living with overweight and obesity, how the prevalence varies by different sociodemographic characteristics and how it has changed over time. It also looks at the impacts of overweight and obesity on the health system, such as health spending, hospitalisations and deaths.

Deaths data are a vital measure of a population’s health and provide information on patterns of diseases that cause death, by population groups and over time. Examining death patterns can help explain differences and changes in health status, evaluate health strategies, and guide planning and policy-making.

This web report presents data to 2024 on deaths, causes of death and life expectancy in Australia.

GRIM books are Excel workbooks that contain national level, historical and recent mortality data for specific causes of death. The tables present age- and sex-specific counts and rates by cause of death, along with other summary measures.

GRIM books are available for all causes of death combined and 55 other cause of death groupings.

MORT books are Excel workbooks that contain recent mortality data for specific geographical areas of Australia, sourced from the AIHW National Mortality Database. The workbooks also present the leading 20 causes of death by sex for specific geographical areas of Australia.

This report presents statistics on the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) using key performance indicators. Of those who were invited to participate in the NBCSP between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024, 42% undertook screening. Among those who screened in 2024, 6% had a positive result warranting further assessment. Of the participants who underwent a follow-up diagnostic assessment, 1 in 29 was diagnosed with a confirmed or suspected cancer.