Contact with objects

< causes of Injury

Contact with objects leading to injury is the second most common cause of hospitalised injury in Australia after falls. Falling or moving objects, hard or sharp objects, household or industrial equipment and intruding foreign bodies are all potential causes of injury.

Contact with objects resulted in:

This represents 15% of injury hospitalisations and 0.9% of injury deaths. Males were particularly at risk, with a hospitalisation rate 2.6 times as high as females.

Deaths caused by contact with objects are comparatively rare, with just 120 recorded in 2019–20.

Contact with objects (also known as Exposure to inanimate mechanical forces) includes harmful contact with everyday or industrial objects such as knives, tools, machines, and sports equipment. It also includes unintentional injuries caused by guns and non-heat-related injuries caused by explosions. (For heat-related injuries, see Thermal causes.) Transport accidents are covered in their own category, and so are excluded here.

This chapter covers accidental contact with objects. Intentional injuries are included under Intentional self-harm and suicide and Assault and homicide

Objects that cause injury hospitalisations

The most common causes of hospitalisation for injuries due to exposure to inanimate mechanical forces fall under the broad categories listed in Table 1.

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Totals may not equal the sum of the rows due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes for hospitalisations (ACCD 2019)
4. Injuries relating to foreign body in respiratory tract (W44 + T17.2-T17.8) are now included in the Choking and Suffocation category.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables B15–16.

Objects that cause injury deaths

The most common cause of injury death due to exposure to inanimate mechanical forces was contact with blunt objects such as doors, trees, rocks and sporting equipment (43%) (Table 2).

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Totals may not equal the sum of the rows due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10 external cause codes for hospitalisations (WHO 2011).

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

For more detail, see Data tables E22–24.

Seasonal differences

Hospital admissions due to contact with objects appear to have a mild seasonal pattern, with more injuries from November through to March.

The interactive display illustrates other seasonal differences in injury hospitalisations.

Figure 1: Seasonal differences in hospitalisations due to contact with objects, 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 objects in 2020–21 was 8.8% higher than the previous year. The previous year had seen a dip, probably related to COVID-19 restrictions.

Over the period from 2011–12 to 2016–17 the average annual change was less than 0.1%. 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).

For deaths due to contact with objects, the average annual change in rate between 2010–11 and 2019–20 was 0.8%.

Figure 2: Hospitalisations and deaths due to contact with objects, by sex by year

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

Age and sex differences

Injury rates due to contact with objects differ for males and females and across age groups (Figure 3).

For injuries caused by contact with objects:

• 72% of hospitalisations in 2020–21 and 88% of deaths in 2019–20 were for males
• the age-standardised rates of hospitalisation were:
  • 478 cases per 100,000 males and
  • 181 per 100,000 females
• males aged 20–24 had the highest rate of hospitalisations.

Figure 3: Hospitalisations due to contact with objects, by age group and sex, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data tables A1–3 and D1–3.

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.

Using these measures, injuries due to contact with objects tend to be less severe than the average for all hospitalised injuries (Table 3).

Note: Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes admissions that are transfers from 1 hospital to another or transfers from 1 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 injuries sustained

In 2020–21, the wrist and hand were the body parts most often identified as the principal site of injury in hospitalisations due to contact with objects (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Injury hospitalisations due to contact with objects by main body part injured, 2020–21

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 wound was the most common type of injury for people who were hospitalised due to contact with objects (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Hospitalised injuries due to contact with objects, by type of injury, by sex, 2019–20

For more detail, see Data table A10.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

In 2020–21, among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

• there were almost 5,100 hospitalisations (Table 4) and fewer than 5 deaths due to contact with objects
• males, compared with females, were 1.9 times as likely to be hospitalised due to contact with objects
• hospitalisation rates were highest among people aged 15–24, compared with other life-stage age groups (Figure 5).

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

In 2020–21, Indigenous Australians, compared with non-Indigenous Australians, were 1.8 times as likely to be hospitalised due to contact with objects (after adjusting for differences in population age structure) (Table 5).

Notes

1. Rates are age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population (per 100,000).
2. ‘Non-Indigenous Australians’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

The rate of injury hospitalisations due to contact with objects was highest among the 15–24 age group for both Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 6). Deaths data are not presented here because of small numbers.

Figure 6: Injury hospitalisations due to contact with objects, by Indigenous status, by age group and sex, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data tables A4–6 and D4–6.

Remoteness

In 2020–21, people living in Very remote areas, compared with people living in Major cities, were almost twice as likely to be hospitalised due to contact with objects (using age-standardised rates) (Table 6).

Note: Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

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

Deaths data are not presented here because of small numbers.

Figure 7: Hospitalisations due to contact with objects, by remoteness, by age group and sex, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data tables A7–9 and D9–10.

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

Data details

Technical notes: how the data were calculated

Data tables: download full data tables

Glossary

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