This page summarises data on unintentional falls. Intentional injuries and deaths are included under Assault and homicide or Self-harm and suicide.
In 2020–21:
- Over half of all falls leading to hospitalisation happened on a single-level surface (for example, by slipping or due to a collision)
- 7% of falls leading to hospitalisation involved stairs or steps (Table 1).
Table 1: Causes of fall injury hospitalisations, 2020–21
Cause
|
Hospitalisations
|
%
|
Rate (per 100,000)
|
Slipping, tripping or stumbling on same level (W01)
|
75,511
|
31
|
294
|
Other fall on same level (W18)
|
49,845
|
20
|
194
|
Fall on or from stairs or steps (W10)
|
16,456
|
7
|
64
|
Fall involving furniture (including bed and chair) (W06–08)
|
15,959
|
7
|
62
|
Fall involving ice-skates, skis, roller-skates or skateboards (W02)
|
8,568
|
4
|
33
|
Fall on or from a ladder (W11)
|
6,584
|
3
|
26
|
Fall involving playground equipment (W09)
|
6,520
|
3
|
25
|
Other fall on same level due to collision with, or pushing by, another person (W03)
|
5,752
|
2
|
22
|
Other specified types of falls (W00, W04–05, W12–17)
|
17,289
|
7
|
67
|
Unspecified fall (W19)
|
40,985
|
17
|
160
|
Total
|
243,469
|
100
|
949
|
Notes
- Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
- Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
- 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 B11–12.
It is often not possible to determine the exact type of fall which contributed to a death. In 2019–20, the type of fall was not specified in 87% of injury-related deaths. For deaths where the type of fall was specified, slipping or tripping on the same level was the most commonly reported cause.
Caution should be used when interpreting this data due to the large proportion of unspecified falls (Table 2).
Table 2: Causes of fall injury deaths, 2019–20
Cause
|
Deaths
|
%
|
Rate
(per 100,000)
|
Slipping, tripping or stumbling on same level (W01)
|
313
|
6
|
1.2
|
Fall involving furniture (including bed and chair) (W06–08)
|
114
|
2
|
0.4
|
Fall on or from ladder, scaffolding, building, tree, cliff or into water (W11–W16)
|
95
|
2
|
0.4
|
Fall on or from stairs or steps (W10)
|
76
|
1
|
0.3
|
Other specified types of falls (W00, W02–05, W09, W17–W18)
|
92
|
2
|
0.4
|
Unspecified fall (W19)
|
3,020
|
57
|
11.8
|
Other identified unspecified fall (X59)
|
1,624
|
30
|
6.4
|
Total
|
5,334
|
100
|
21
|
Notes
- Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
- Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
- Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10 external cause codes (WHO 2011).
Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.
For more detail, see Data tables E16–18.
Hospital admissions for fall injuries remain relatively consistent over the year.
In March 2020, COVID-19 restrictions interrupted the usual activity of Australians. The restrictions coincided with a marked drop in overall injury hospitalisations. For falls, there were 14% fewer hospitalisations from March to May than in the same period of the previous year. With the initial restrictions easing, admissions for falls returned to previous levels by June (Figure 1).
Hospitalisations for some categories of injury do change over the seasons – see the interactive display.

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.
The age-standardised rate of hospitalisations due to falls in 2020–21 was 7.0% higher than the previous year. The previous year had seen a dip that appears to have been driven by COVID-19 restrictions.
Over the period from 2011–12 to 2016–17 there was an average annual increase of 1.9% 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).
For deaths due to falls, the age-standardised rate for 2019–20 was 3.0% lower than a year earlier. The average annual increase in rate between 2010–11 and 2019–20 was 0.5% (Figure 2).