First Nations Burden of Disease Study 2022

Measuring the ‘gap’ in disease burden between First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians is of key interest to current policy makers, as reflected in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap’s socioeconomic outcome target to close the gap in life expectancy within a generation (Joint Council on Closing the Gap 2020).

First Nations and non-Indigenous rates presented, have been age-standardised in order to remove the effect of differences in age structure between the 2 populations. Rate ratios and rate differences are presented as measures of the gap in disease burden.

In addition, results are presented on the diseases contributing most to the health gap (measured as the proportion that each disease group contributes to the total DALY rate difference).

Disease group contribution to the total burden (DALY) varied for First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians, and by year. Use the interactive graph below to explore data on how much each disease group contributed to total burden in 2022, 2018 and 2011 for First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians.

Use the interactive graph below explore data on the gap in health outcomes between First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians for 2022, 2018 and 2011. The ‘Contribution’ tab shows disease group contribution to the gap in health outcomes. The ‘Population comparison’ tab compares health outcomes by disease group using rate differences and rate ratios, and by age group using rate ratios and age-specific DALY rates (per 1,000 people).