People with disability in Australia 2026

Introduction

Chronic health conditions are the leading cause of illness, disability and death in Australia. They are often associated with some level of disability. Chronic health conditions are diseases or disorders that have lasted or are likely to last for 6 months or more. People who are restricted or limited in their ability to do activities because of chronic health conditions are identified as having disability (ABS 2022).

This section explores how many people with certain chronic conditions as their main condition have disability, and how severe this disability is. The 12 chronic conditions covered in this section are:

• heart disease (including angina, heart attack, Ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, and other heart disease)
• stroke
• diabetes (excluding gestational diabetes)
• arthritis (including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and other types of arthritis)
• back problems (including dorsopathies)
• osteoporosis
• asthma
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; including emphysema, bronchitis, or bronchiolitis chronic, and chronic airflow limitation)
• cancer
• kidney or urinary disease
• dementia (including frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and Alzheimer's disease)
• mental and behavioural conditions (excluding dementia).

 The People with disability in Australia 2024 report covered 8 of the above 12 conditions. Cancer, kidney or urinary disease, dementia, and mental and behavioural conditions excluding dementia were added to the list for the first time in this update. The approach used to analyse the link between chronic conditions and disability is consistent with earlier reports.

These 12 chronic conditions were selected because they are common, pose significant health problems, and, in many instances, action can be taken to prevent their occurrence. More information can be found in Chronic disease.

It cannot be assumed that disability is a consequence of a chronic health condition. As such, this section describes only the associations between disability and the selected chronic conditions and does not describe a causal relationship.

Main condition

About 8.6 million people in Australia are affected by at least one of the 12 chronic health conditions covered in this section. For more than 3 in 4 of them (78% or 6.7 million), the condition is reported as their main health condition (the condition causing the most problems) (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024a).

Some of the selected chronic conditions are more common than others. According to the ABS National Health Survey, in 2022, 26.1% of Australians had a mental or behavioural condition, 14.5% had arthritis and 10.8% had asthma. Kidney disease (1.0%), cancer (1.8%), and COPD (2.5%) were relatively less common (ABS 2023). Smaller numbers for the less common conditions may make it harder to interpret results, or to confirm observed differences statistically.

Certain chronic conditions are more likely to be the main condition, while others more commonly occur alongside another main condition. For example:

• 60% (or 2.2 million) of people with a mental or behavioural condition have this as their main condition
• 55% (or 125,000) of people with dementia have dementia as their main condition
• 47% (or 931,000) of people with asthma have this as their main condition
• 22% (or 95,000) of people with stroke have this as their main condition
• 20% (or 111,000) of people with osteoporosis have this as their main condition (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024b).

Disability among people with selected chronic conditions

Chronic conditions often coexist with some form of disability:

• over half (54% or 4.7 million) of people with at least one of the selected chronic conditions also have disability
• 50% (or 3.4 million) of people who have one of the selected chronic conditions as their main condition also have disability (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024a).

Some chronic conditions are more likely than others to be linked with disability (Figure CHRONIC.1). Among selected chronic conditions, people with asthma as their main condition are the least likely to have disability (16% or 147,000). People with dementia (97% or 121,000) or COPD (80% or 90,000) as their main condition are the most likely to have disability.

Asthma as the main condition is also associated with the lowest proportion of severe or profound disability (Figure CHRONIC.1), with 1 in 35 (2.8% or 26,000) people with asthma as their main condition having severe or profound disability. On the other hand, dementia is associated with the highest likelihood of severe or profound disability, with 90% (or 112,000) of people whose main condition is dementia having severe or profound disability (Figure CHRONIC.1).

Chronic conditions and disability both become more common with age (more information on this can be found in How many people have disability? and Chronic disease). For most of the 12 conditions, people aged 65 and over who have one of these conditions as their main condition are more likely than those aged under 65 to have disability. For example:

• among people with asthma as their main condition, 12% (or 102,000) of those aged under 65 and 48% (or 44,000) of those 65 and over have disability
• for people who have back problems as their main condition, 46% (or 345,000) aged under 65 and 73% (or 307,000) aged 65 and over have disability (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024b).

Differences in the disability rate by age are smallest among people with mental and behavioural conditions as their main condition. Around 3 in 5 of people with this main condition have disability, 57% (or 1.2 million) of those aged under 65, and 65% (or 111,000) of those aged 65 and over (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024b).

For osteoporosis and dementia, no comparison between age groups could be made due to small numbers of people aged under 65 who have these conditions.

For most of the 12 chronic conditions, there is less variation by sex than by age group in how likely a person is to have disability. The largest difference between males and females occurs for mental and behavioural conditions and arthritis. Males with a mental and behavioural condition as their main condition are more likely than females to have disability, while for arthritis, females with this main condition are more likely to have disability than males:

• 65% (or 687,000) of males with a mental and behavioural condition as their main condition have disability, compared with 51% (or 589,000) of females
• 62% (or 454,000) of females with arthritis as their main condition have disability, compared with 52% (or 195,000) of males (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024b).

Heart disease, cancer, and kidney or urinary disease appear to be associated with higher occurrence of disability in males than females. At the same time, stroke, dementia, COPD, diabetes, and asthma appear to be associated with higher rates of disability in females than in males. However, due to relatively small numbers of people who have these conditions as their main condition, findings were estimated with a high degree of error, and the differences could not be confirmed statistically (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024b).

Back problems as the main condition were associated with similar rates of disability in males (55%) and females (56%). Findings for osteoporosis could not be compared by sex, due to small numbers of males who have this condition as their main condition (AIHW analysis of ABS 2024b).

To more fully support the evidence base about the interrelationship between sex, age, chronic conditions and disability, further analysis is needed. This could include age standardisation, analysis of multimorbidity, and better linkage between chronic health, disability support, mainstream health services, NDIS access and non-NDIS support pathways.