Measure 3.3: Increased number of Australians taking steps to reduce their risk of developing dementia
While there are many non-modifiable risk factors for dementia (including ageing and genetics) there are many risk factors that people can modify to reduce their dementia risk (AIHW 2025). It is important to measure whether people are taking actions to reduce their dementia risk to understand typical behaviour and areas that may need to be targeted in the future.
Data are available from the Dementia Awareness Survey to track this measure.
Actions taken to reduce dementia risk
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Indicator
Average number of actions Australians are taking out of a list of known actions that can reduce their dementia risk.
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Baseline Value
9 out of 14 known actions in 2023
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Latest value
Baseline value only
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Progress
To be provided in future updates
The desired outcome is that Australians take more actions to reduce their dementia risk, meaning this indicator will increase over time.
Information about the number and type of actions taken by different population groups can be found in the Dementia Awareness Survey findings. For example, in 2023:
- Australians aged 55 and over were statistically significantly more likely to take more actions that can reduce the risk of dementia than younger Australians (aged 44 and below)
- older women (65 and over) were significantly more likely to take actions specifically for dementia prevention than younger women.
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Indicator
Proportion of Australians who agree they are more likely to adopt a healthy lifestyle if it reduces dementia risk.
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Baseline value
83% agreed in 2023
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Latest value
Baseline value only
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Progress
To be provided in future updates
The desired outcome is that more Australians are more likely to adopt a healthy lifestyle to reduce dementia risk, meaning this indicator will increase over time.
Change over time
Future updates of this report will track changes over time for the above two indicators.
In 2023, population groups who were significantly less likely to agree they would adopt a healthy lifestyle if it reduces dementia risk included:
- men (compared with women)
- people who finished school before Year 12 (compared with people with a Bachelor's degree or higher)
- people who did not have a family member or friend living with dementia (compared with those who did).
A smaller proportion of people living in Very remote areas agreed than those living in other remoteness areas, but the difference was not statistically significant (Figure 3.3).
People aged 65 and over were significantly more likely to agree than people aged 18–24.
Figure 3.3 Percentage of people who agree they are more likely to adopt a healthy lifestyle if it reduces dementia risk, by population group, 2023
Bar chart shows the percentage who agree, by gender, age group, remoteness area, education level and having a family or friend living with dementia.
These data come from the Dementia Awareness Survey (DAS).
The DAS was first run in 2023, surveying more than 5,400 Australian adults to understand general knowledge of dementia and dementia risk factors, and community attitudes towards dementia and people living with dementia in Australia.
Data are reported by population groups where data quality allows.
Comprehensive technical notes detailing survey methodology, questionnaire design, sampling, weighting and significance testing are available from the Dementia Awareness Survey technical notes and supplementary data tables.
AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2025) Dementia in Australia, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 5 October 2025.