Summary
Disease expenditure in Australia describes the activity and characteristics of Australia’s health care system in 2015–16 in terms of estimated expenditure for different demographic groups in the population, and expenditure relating to different disease groups.
This web report provides the most recent data available on the health care expenditure on all Australian Burden of Disease Study conditions, including expenditure by health care sector, type of condition, age group, and sex. Information is presented on the web pages using interactive visualisations, and downloadable Microsoft Excel workbooks.
The main findings of the report are that, in 2015–16:
- Total recurrent expenditure on health goods and services in 2015–16 was $160.3 billion, of which an estimated 73 per cent ($117.0 billion) was able to be attributed to specific disease groups.
- The musculoskeletal disorders group had the highest estimated expenditure, costing $12.5 billion (or 10.7% of allocated expenditure). The next highest expenditure groups were Cardiovascular diseases ($10.4 billion), Injuries ($8.9 billion), and Mental and substance use disorders ($8.9 billion).
- The conditions with the highest total expenditure were Other cardiovascular ($5.6 billion), other musculoskeletal ($4.8 billion), and Dental caries ($4.8 billion).
- Excluding ‘other’ conditions, the condition with the highest expenditure attributed to sex for females was Falls ($2.0 billion) and for males was Osteoarthritis ($1.5 billion).
Related information can be found in the Australian Burden of Disease Study web report, the How do we measure the cost of disease? fact sheet, and the accompanying Disease Expenditure 2015–16 Study: Overview of analysis and methodology report.