Alcohol consumption status recorded (PI16)
This indicator is the proportion of First Nations regular clients aged 15 and over who had their alcohol consumption status recorded within the previous 24 months.
It is collected for males and females in age groups:
- 15–24
- 25–34
- 35–44
- 45–54
- 55–64
- 65 and over.
Why recording alcohol consumption is important
Alcohol consumption refers to the consumption of drinks containing ethanol, commonly referred to as alcohol.
The harmful use of alcohol has both short-term and long-term health effects. Short-term effects are mainly related to potential injury suffered by the drinker and/or others who may be affected by the drinker’s behaviour. Over the longer term, excessive alcohol consumption is associated with a variety of adverse health and social consequences. It is a major risk factor for conditions, including liver disease, pancreatitis, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and some types of cancer. It is also linked to social and emotional wellbeing, mental health and other drug issues. Alcohol use during pregnancy is associated with severe adverse perinatal outcomes, such as foetal alcohol syndrome and alcohol-related birth defects and developmental disorders.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey show that First Nations people aged 15 and over were more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to have not drunk alcohol in the previous 12 months (AIHW and NIAA 2024).
At June 2025, 61% of (or around 159,000) First Nations regular clients aged 15 and over had their alcohol consumption status recorded within the previous 24 months (Figure 23).
The data visualisation below (Figure 23) shows, for each collection period from June 2017 to June 2025, the proportion of First Nations regular clients aged 15 and over who had their alcohol consumption status recorded within the previous 24 months. Select by either:
- organisation type
- remoteness
- state/territory
- age group/sex
to see data for that breakdown.
Data tables supporting this visualisation are available at Data.
Figure 23: Alcohol consumption status recorded by collection period
Overall, the proportion of First Nations regular clients aged 15 and over who had their alcohol consumption status recorded within the previous 24 months generally increased between December 2022 and June 2025.
Notes
- Breaks are included to separate out the periods most affected by voluntary reporting and the peak of COVID-19 and associated emergency response measures. This break, however, is not a clean break as each indicator in the nKPI collection has an assigned time frame (a reference period) as part of its specification. For this indicator, which has a reference period of 24 months, data in collection periods for December 2022 (covering 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2022), June 2023 (covering 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2023) and December 2023 (covering 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2023) still overlap with the peak of COVID-19 and associated emergency response measures. For more information see Comparisons over time.
- Alcohol consumption is recorded using the AUDIT-C tool.
- The linear trend lines provide a general impression of the direction of the data. Caution should be taken interpreting trends with less than 5 data points. See also Figure 20 for trends for selected data.
- For more information, including on interpreting changes over time, see Technical notes.
Reference
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and National Indigenous Australians Agency (2024) Measure 2.16 Risky alcohol consumption, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework website, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 17 October 2025.