This represents 5.2% of injury hospitalisations and 0.2% of injury deaths.
In medical coding terms, this topic includes exposure to animate mechanical forces, contact with venomous animals and plants and exposure to or contact with allergens: allergy to animals.
Because of the low number of deaths from contact with living things, they are not described further below.
This category only includes unintentional injuries. Intentional harm is included under Assault and homicide.
In 2020–21:
- Contact with non-venomous animals was the top cause (57%) of hospitalisations in this category (Table 1). Of these, 53% involved dogs (Table 2)
- person-to-person contact accounted for 31% of hospitalisations in this category (Table 1)
- of hospitalisations involving venomous animals, spiders were the most common (27%) (Table 3).
Table 1: Causes of injury hospitalisations due to contact with living things, 2020–21
Cause
|
Hospitalisations
|
%
|
Rate (per 100,000)
|
Contact with non-venomous animals (W53–59, W61)
|
17,038
|
57
|
66
|
Unintentional person-to-person contact (W50–52)
|
9,137
|
31
|
36
|
Contact with venomous animals and plants (X20-29)
|
2,452
|
8
|
9.6
|
Allergy to animals (Y37.6)
|
639
|
2.1
|
2.5
|
Contact with plants (W60)
|
479
|
1.6
|
1.9
|
Other and unspecified (W64)
|
204
|
0.7
|
0.8
|
Total
|
29,949
|
100
|
117
|
Notes
1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).
4. Person-to-person contact includes being hit, struck, kicked, twisted, bitten or scratched by another person, striking against or bumping into another person, and being crushed, pushed or stepped on by crowd or human stampede. Injuries involving a fall because of a collision with or pushing by another person are not included. See Falls.
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.
Table 2: Non-venomous animals involved in injury hospitalisations, 2020–21
Type of animal
|
Hospitalisations
|
%
|
Rate (per 100,000)
|
Dogs (W54)
|
9,079
|
53
|
35
|
Other mammals (W55)
|
5,118
|
30
|
20
|
Non-venomous snakes, lizards and other reptiles (W59)
|
1,952
|
11
|
7.6
|
Non-venomous insects and arthropods (including spiders) (W57)
|
591
|
3.5
|
2.3
|
Non-venomous marine animals (excluding crocodiles) (W56)
|
218
|
1.3
|
0.8
|
Birds (W61)
|
37
|
0.2
|
0.1
|
Rats (W53)
|
25
|
0.1
|
0.1
|
Crocodiles and alligators (W58)
|
18
|
0.1
|
0.1
|
Total
|
17,038
|
100
|
66
|
Notes
1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Percentages and rate may not sum to total due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.
Table 3: Venomous animals involved in injury hospitalisations, 2020–21
Type of venomous animal
|
Hospitalisations
|
%
|
Rate (per 100,000)
|
Spiders (X21)
|
650
|
27
|
2.5
|
Snakes (X20)
|
521
|
21
|
2.0
|
Bees and wasps (X23)
|
474
|
19
|
1.8
|
Others (X22, X24–X29)
|
807
|
33
|
3.1
|
Total
|
2,452
|
100
|
9.6
|
Notes
1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Percentages may not sum to total due to rounding.
4. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.
For more detail, see Data tables B19–20.
Hospital admissions due to contact with living things display a minor seasonal pattern, with peaks in summer and autumn before a low from July to October (Figure 1).
In March 2020, COVID-19 restrictions interrupted the usual activity of Australians. These restrictions coincided with a marked drop in overall injury hospitalisations. For injuries due to contact with living things, there were 28% fewer admissions from March to May 2020 than in the same period of the previous year.
The interactive display illustrates other seasonal differences in injury hospitalisations.
Figure 1: Seasonal differences in hospitalisations due to contact with living things, 2018–19 to 2020–21

Notes
1. Admission counts have been standardised into two 15-day periods per month.
2. A scale up factor has been applied to June admissions to account for cases not yet separated.
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.
Trends over time
The age-standardised rate of hospitalisations due to contact with living things in 2020–21 was 19% higher than the previous year. The previous year had seen a drop in injury hospitalisations most likely caused by COVID-19 restrictions (Figure 2).
Over the period from 2011–12 to 2016–17 there was an average annual increase of 3.2% for the age-standardised rate of hospitalisations.
There is a break in the time series for hospitalisations between 2016–17 and 2017–18, due to a change in data collection methods (see the technical notes for details).
Figure 2: Injury hospitalisations due to contact with living things, by sex and year