Ranking diseases by burden shows the leading causes of health loss for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. Changes in rankings over time may be due to changes in disease prevalence, epidemics or changes to how causes of data is collected, reported or coded.
In this interactive graph, leading causes of death and disease burden (YLL, YLD or DALY) can be ranked by the number or by the age-standardised rate (ASR) in the population.
Note that an increase in rank over time does not always mean the disease or injury has increased in the population, and vice versa. Therefore, changes in ranking of causes of deaths and disease burden over time should be interpreted with caution. In addition, leading causes of death in this data visualisation is based on Australian Burden of Disease Study 2018 methods and will not be comparable to other reports of leading causes of death due to modelling and cause of death alignment to diseases.
Use the ‘Rank by ASR’ interactive graph to explore the leading 25 causes of disease burden (YLL, YLD or DALY) among Indigenous Australians for 2003, 2011 and 2018, or the ‘Rank by number’ interactive graph to explore rankings by number of YLL, YLD or DALY. The ‘Rank by number’ graph ranks diseases/injuries using raw numbers that have not been adjusted to take into account population age structure. The ‘Rank by ASR’ graph ranks diseases/injuries by age-standardised rates which take into account differences in population age structure and allows for more accurate comparisons.
See Chapter 7 in the Australian Burden of Disease Study 2018: impact and causes of illness and death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people report for more information on changes over time in disease burden.