Burden across life stages
This section presents disease burden estimates for seven broad age groups for the First Nations population, including changes since 2011. Before reading this section it is recommended to first read earlier sections of this report which provide a high level overview of total burden, non-fatal burden and fatal burden in the First Nations population. Information on the quality of estimates is included in Australian Burden of Disease Study: methods and supplementary material 2018.
The age group summaries will be updated with data on risk factor attributable burden, when available.
Burden by age
Disease burden is not evenly distributed over the different stages of life. This is partly due to the different diseases that have an impact at different ages, and partly due to the different causes of death and patterns of age at death for First Nations males and females. As the amount of burden varies greatly by age, the same leading causes may have very large differences in burden across age groups. Conversely, causes that are not ranked among the leading causes for some age groups may still be high-burden diseases.
The following pages outline the main disease groups and specific causes that caused the most total, non-fatal and fatal burden for First Nations people in 7 broad age groups:
- Infants and young children (aged under 5)
- Children (aged 5-14)
- Adolescents and young adults (aged 15-24)
- Adults aged 25-44
- Adults aged 45-64
- Adults aged 65-74
- Older adults (aged 75 and over)
Several measures are used to describe burden in this section of the report, including age-specific rates. See Different type of statistics presented in this report for more information.
Figure 1 compares the proportion of First Nations people in these 7 age groups with the proportion of health loss experienced by each age group in 2022.
- Infants, children and young adults aged under 25 comprised around half (51%, 524,200 people) of the First Nations population but accounted for just under a quarter (23%, 71,965 DALY) of the total burden in 2022.
- Adults aged 25–64 comprised 43% (439,400 people) of the First Nations population and more than half (58%, 183,914 DALY) of the total burden.
- Adults aged 65 and over comprised 5.6% (57,215 people) of the population but accounted for about one-fifth (19%, 61,455 DALY) of the total burden.
Figure 1: Proportion of First Nations population and total burden (DALY), by age group, First Nations people, 2022
Grouped column chart comparing population by age group, to DALY. More than half of the total burden was for adults aged 25–64. Older age groups experienced a greater contribution of burden compared to population.
| Age group (years) | Population | DALY |
|---|---|---|
| Under 5 | 10.6 | 5.8 |
| 5–14 | 22.3 | 5.2 |
| 15–24 | 18.4 | 11.7 |
| 25–44 | 25.6 | 26.9 |
| 45–64 | 17.4 | 31.0 |
| 65–74 | 4.0 | 11.6 |
| 75+ | 1.6 | 7.8 |
Source:
AIHW First Nations Burden of Disease Database
To further explore the top disease groups and causes by age group, see the following interactive data visualisations:
- Dashboard 7: Top disease groups across the stages of life: This visualisation shows the top 5 disease groups contributing to burden for each age group and the top specific causes contributing to those disease groups disaggregated by fatal and non-fatal burden.
- Dashboard 8: Top specific causes across the stages of life: This visualisation provides the top 5 causes contributing to burden for each age group, by sex.