Contact with living things

Injuries caused by contact with living things include bites, stings and envenomation from animals, insects and plants, along with unintentional person-to-person contact-such as while playing sport.

Injuries caused by contact with living things resulted in:

This represents 5.3% of hospitalised injuries 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, deaths are not described further.

This category only includes unintentional injuries. Intentional harm is included under Assault and homicide.

Causes of hospitalisation

In 2021–22:

• Contact with non-venomous animals was the top cause (60%) of hospitalisations in this category (Table 1). Of these, 56% involved dogs (Table 2)
• person-to-person contact accounted for 26% of hospitalisations in this category (Table 1)
• of the 7% of hospitalisations involving venomous animals, 27% of these were due to snakes (Table 3).

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.

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.

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.

Trends over time

Over the period from 2017–18 to 2021–22, the age-standardised rate of hospitalisations due to contact with living things increased by an annual average of 0.5%. Figure 1 shows that this was largely driven by an increase among females. From 2012–13 to 2016–17 there was an average annual increase of 4.8%.

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 1: Injury hospitalisations due to contact with living things, by sex and year

For more detail, see Data tables C1–3 and F1–4.

Seasonal differences

Hospitalisations due to contact with living things display a minor seasonal pattern, with peaks in summer and autumn (Figure 2).

In March 2020, COVID-19 restrictions interrupted the usual activity of Australians, coinciding with a large dip in injury hospitalisations.

Figure 2: Seasonal differences in hospitalisations due to contact with living things, 2019-20 to 2021–22

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.

Age and sex differences

Rates of injuries caused by contact with living things differ by sex and across age groups. In 2021–22:

• 56% of the hospitalisations were for males
• the age-standardised rates of hospitalisation were 130 cases per 100,000 males, and 97 per 100,000 females
• males aged 15–24 had the highest rate of hospitalisation (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Injury hospitalisations and deaths due to contact with living things, by age group and sex, 2021–22

For more detail, see Data tables B19–20.

Severity

There are many ways that the severity, or seriousness, of an injury can be assessed. Some of the ways to measure the severity of hospitalised injuries are:

• number of days in hospital
• time in an intensive care unit (ICU)
• time on a ventilator
• in-hospital deaths.

Injuries due to contact with living things appear less severe than the average for all hospitalised injuries (Table 4).

Note: Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes admissions that are transfers from one hospital to another or transfers from one admitted care type to another within the same hospital, except where care involves rehabilitation procedures.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables A13–15.

Types of injury sustained

In 2021–22, the wrist and hand was the body part most often identified as the main site of injury in hospitalisations caused by contact with living things (33%), followed by the head and neck (19%) (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Hospitalised injuries due to contact with living things, by main body part injured, 2021–22

Hover over a body part for more information:

Notes

1. Main body part refers to the principal reason for hospitalisation.
2. ‘Trunk’ includes thorax, abdomen, lower back, lumbar spine & pelvis.
3. Number and percentage of injuries classified as Other, multiple, and incompletely specified body regions and Injuries not described in terms of body region not shown – see Data table A11.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data table A11.

Open wounds were the most common type of injury for people who were hospitalised due to contact with living things, followed by fractures (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Hospitalised injuries due to contact with living things, by type of injury, by sex, 2021–22

For more detail, see Data table A10.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

In 2021–22, among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

• there were about 2,200 hospitalisations due to contact with living things, with the rate for males 1.5 times as high as for females (Table 5)
• hospitalisation rates were highest in the 25–44 and 15–24 age groups (Figure 6).

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

In 2021–22, Indigenous Australians, compared with non-Indigenous Australians, were 2.4 times as likely to be hospitalised due to contact with living things (Table 6).

Deaths are not compared here because of low numbers.

Notes

1. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
2. ‘Non-Indigenous Australians’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Figure 6: Injury hospitalisations due to contact with living things, by Indigenous status, by age group and sex, 2021–22

For more detail, see Data tables A4–6.

Remoteness

In 2021–22, people living in Australia’s Very remote areas, compared with people living in Major cities, were 3 times as likely to be hospitalised due to contact with living things (Table 7).

Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Note: Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

The highest age-specific rate of injury hospitalisation due to contact with living things was among the 15–24 age group living in Very remote areas of Australia. (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Injury hospitalisations caused by contact with living things, by remoteness, by age group and sex, 2021–22

For more detail, see Data tables A7–9.

For information on how statistics are calculated by remoteness, see the technical notes.

Data details

• Technical notes: how the data were calculated
• Data tables: download full data tables
• Glossary
  
  

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