Spending by remoteness

The development of geographical classifications for Australia that describe areas in terms of relative remoteness has provided an opportunity to compare a wide range of health and welfare indicators across Australia's major cities, regional and remote areas. This section presents estimates of disease expenditure by ASGC (Australian Standard Geographical Classification) Remoteness Areas classification. ASGC Remoteness categorises areas as ‘major cities’, ‘inner regional’, ‘outer regional’, ‘remote’ and ‘very remote’.

Most Australians live in Major cities than in regional or remote areas. As at 31 December 2023, the proportion of Australians by area of remoteness was:

  • 72.6% in Major cities
  • 17.5% in Inner regional areas
  • 7.9% in Outer regional areas
  • 1.2% in Remote areas
  • 0.7% in Very remote areas (ABS 2024).

People living in remote and very remote areas can face barriers to accessing and using health care, due to various challenges: geographic spread, low population density, limited infrastructure, and the higher costs of delivering rural and remote health care can limit the availability of services. The additional time and transportation costs to access health care services also means people in remote and very remote areas may delay access to preventive and primary health care and rely on hospital care to have their needs met (NRHA 2023).

The following two interactive data visualisations (Figure 20 and 21) show spending for different disease groups, by sex, state and remoteness for 2023–24, presented as total spending and spending per 100,000 population. The first of these visualisations presents spending using a map of Australia while the second uses a bar graph presentation. Data used to create the visualisations is available to download from the data tables.

Figure 20: Map showing spending on burden of disease groups by sex and remoteness area, 2023–24

This map shows spending on burden of disease groups by sex and by remoteness category. The darker the shading in a particular area of the map is where there is higher spending.

This map shows spending on burden of disease groups by sex and by remoteness category. The darker the shading in a particular area of the map is where there is higher spending.

Figure 21: Spending on burden of disease groups by sex, state and remoteness area, 2023–24

This visualisation shows spending on burden of disease groups by state, sex by remoteness area. For mental health conditions and substance use disorders on average across Australia there is higher spending per 100,000 population in very remote areas compared to major cities.

This visualisation shows spending on burden of disease groups by state, sex by remoteness area. For mental health conditions and substance use disorders on average across Australia there is higher spending per 100,000 population in very remote areas compared to major cities.

Figure 22 shows how expenditure for burden of disease conditions compares by remoteness across broad areas of expenditure. Findings are presented for total spending and on a per 100,000 population basis.

Figure 22: Spending on burden of disease conditions by broad area of expenditure by remoteness areas, 2023–24

This bar graph displays the spending on burden of disease conditions by remoteness for each broad area of expenditure in total spending and on a per 100,000 population basis.

This bar graph displays the spending on burden of disease conditions by remoteness for each broad area of expenditure in total spending and on a per 100,000 population basis.

ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2024), National, state and territory population, ABS, Australian Government, accessed 25 August 2025.

NRHA (2023) Evidence base for additional investment in rural health in Australia, NRHA, accessed 20 August 2025.

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