Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024

Acknowledgements

The Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024 was undertaken by members of the Burden of Disease and Mortality Unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

The Study was undertaken by Karen Bishop, Amelie Cahill, Vergil Dolar, Julianne Garcia, Steph Gordon, Wendy Ho, Paula Laws, Yolanda Lovie-Toon, Nick Mann, Lauren Oakley Browne, Matilda Pulford and Anna Reynolds, under the guidance of Michelle Gourley.

Special thanks to Louise Gates and Vanessa Prescott for reviewing the report.

Oscar Yang and David Whitelaw provided valuable advice on statistical methods for the Study.

The authors acknowledge the Health and Vitals Statistics Section in the Australian Bureau of Statistics for providing provisional death registration data.

Helen Tse and John Mankey assisted with publication and the presentation of information.

Analyses were conducted in consultation with the Burden of Disease Expert Advisory Group whose members are Lynelle Moon (Chair), Anthony Barnes (independent consultant), Tony Blakely (University of Melbourne), Nick Chia (Treasury), Ching Choi (University of New South Wales), Susan Clemens (Qld Health), Karen Cutter (Australian Government Actuary), Annette Dobson (University of Queensland), Tim Driscoll (University of Sydney), Linda Fardell (Australian Bureau of Statistics), John Goss (University of Canberra), Samantha Howe (University of Melbourne), Laura Kirkland (Department of Health Western Australia), Maarit Laaksonen (University of New South Wales), Sharyn Lymer (NSW Health), Madeleine Skellern (Department of Health and Aged Care), and Anjum Zafar (Department of Health and Aged Care).

Special thanks to Alize Ferrari and Damian Santomauro for providing valuable advice on methods for specific mental health conditions.

Thank you also to Phillip Wise, David Whiteman, Catherine Olsen, Rachel Neale, Samantha Bricknell, Hannah Miles and Luke Knibbs for providing advice on risk factors.

The Department of Health and Aged Care funded this Study and provided valuable input during the drafting process.

Amendments

26 September 2025 – Figure 1.3: The 5th leading disease for females was previously reported as Coronary heart disease (3.8%), but is Depressive disorders (3.8%).

2 September 2025 – The update provides corrected estimates for burden due to injury by nature of injury (Table S2 in the downloadable data tables).