Injury among women 2022–23

Intentional violence against another person is classified as assault (injury) or homicide (death). ED presentations are not reported by cause due to the quality of available information. For women in 2022–23, assault was the seventh leading cause of injury hospitalisation and homicide was the ninth leading cause of injury death.

These intentional injuries resulted in:

Assault injury hospitalisations have increased over the past decade

The age-standardised rate of assault injury hospitalisations among women gradually increased between 2017–18 and 2019–20 followed by a sharp decline during the COVID pandemic period until 2021–22 before returning to an increasing trend in 2022–23 (Figure 17). The homicide death ASR has remained relatively stable over the last 7 years.

Figure 17: Number and age-standardised rate (per 100,000) of assault injury hospitalisations and homicide deaths among women, Australia, 2013–14 to 2022–23

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, AIHW National Mortality Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

Notes:

1. Only includes records where patient was aged 19 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
2. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
3. Columns are case counts, the line graph presents age-standardised rate per 100,000 population.
4. The dashed line presents a break in the time series, see Technical notes for detail.

Assault by bodily force was the leading type of assault resulting in injury hospitalisation for women

Almost 9 in 10 assault injury hospitalisations among women in 2022–23 were due to some type of physical assault (6,624 hospitalisations or 86.6%), with assault by bodily force the most common assault type reported (4,285 hospitalisations, ASR 369.3 per 100,000 women) (Figure 18).

Figure 18: Number and age-standardised rate (per 100,000 women) of assault injury hospitalisations and homicide deaths, by type of assault, Australia, 2022–23

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, AIHW National Mortality Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

Notes:

1. Only includes records where patient was aged 19 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
2. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
3. Rates where underlying numerator count is under 20 are excluded from display.
4. Hospitalisation counts under 5 are excluded from display.
5. Death counts under 3 are excluded from display.
6. Assault by other substances excludes drugs, medicaments and biological substances.

Spouses or domestic partners perpetrated half of all assault injury hospitalisations for women

Spouses or domestic partners were the leading perpetrators of assault injury hospitalisations among women (3,799 hospitalisations, 49.7%). This was true for all age groups, except women aged 65 years and over, where other family member was the most common perpetrator (Figure 19). Conversely, other family member was the second most common perpetrator of assault injury hospitalisation for all age groups, except women aged 65 years and over, where the second most common perpetrator of assault injury hospitalisations was a spouse or domestic partner. The perpetrator was not specified in 14% of assault injury hospitalisations (1,087 hospitalisations) in 2022–23.

Figure 19: Number and crude rate (per 100,000 population) of assault hospitalisations by perpetrator and age group, Australia, 2022–23

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

Notes:

1. Only includes records where patient was aged 19 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
2. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
3. Rates where underlying numerator count is under 10 are excluded from display.
4. Hospitalisation counts under 5 are excluded from display.
5. Perpetrator is derived from the nominal external cause.

The most common injury was open wounds to the head and neck

Almost 3 in 5 (59%) injury hospitalisations due to assault among women were for one of the following three types of injury:

The head and neck was the leading site of injury for assault injury hospitalisations among women (4,412 hospitalisations, 57.7%) and was the most common body part injured for all types of injury except other specified and/or multiple injuries (Figure 20).

Figure 20: Number of assault injury hospitalisations among women by type of injury and body part injured, Australia, 2022–23

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

Notes:

1. Only includes records where patient was aged 19 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
2. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
3. Rates where underlying numerator count is under 20 are excluded from display.
4. Hospitalisation counts under 5 are excluded from display.
5. Type of injury and body part injured are both derived from the principal diagnosis.

Where place was specified, the home was the commonest recorded place where women were injured

About half (49%) of assault injury hospitalisations had information recorded on the place of occurrence of the assault. Excluding hospitalisations where the place of occurrence was unspecified or missing (3,897 hospitalisations, 51.0%), the most recorded place of occurrence for assault injuries among women was in the home (2,584 hospitalisations, 33.8%). 

Hospitalised assault injuries were generally less severe than average

Based on multiple hospitalisation severity measures, assault injuries were generally less severe than the average for all injuries among women (Table 7).

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Notes:

1. Only includes records where patient was aged 19 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
2. Average length of stay (ALOS) 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 involved rehabilitation procedures.
3. All injuries includes assault in the total calculations.

Half of women with assault injuries received social work care during hospitalisation

Social work (allied health) was the most common intervention received with almost half (47%) of assault injury hospitalisations receiving this service during their hospital stay.  On average, women hospitalised for assault injuries received fewer interventions than the average for all causes of injury (1.3 and 2.5 interventions respectively). 

Women aged 25 to 39 years were most likely to be hospitalised for assault injuries while women aged 65 years and over were most likely to die by homicide

In 2022–23, women aged 25 to 39 years had the highest rate of assault injury hospitalisation (126.8 per 100,000 population), followed by women aged 19 to 24 (114.3 per 100,000 population) (Figure 21). Women aged 65 and over had the highest rate of homicide (0.8 per 100,000 population) despite having the lowest rate of assault injury hospitalisation (15.5 per 100,000 population).

Figure 21: Number and crude rate (per 100,000) of assault injury hospitalisations and homicide deaths by and age group, Australia, 2022–23

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, AIHW National Mortality Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

Notes:

1. Only includes records where patient was aged 19 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
2. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
3. Rates where underlying numerator count is under 10 are excluded from display.
4. Hospitalisation counts under 5 are excluded from display.
5. Death counts under 3 are excluded from display.

Women aged 19 to 24 years experienced higher rates of injury hospitalisation due to sexual assault

The rate of sexual assault injury hospitalisation decreased with increasing age. Women aged 19 to 24 years were most likely to have sexual assault recorded during their assault injury hospitalisations (5.4 per 100,000 women) compared with other age groups in 2022–23. The same pattern was observed among women’s assault injury hospitalisations from other, maltreatment or legal interventions: the highest rates were for women aged 19 to 24 years (13.4 per 100,000 population) and rates decreased with increasing age.

Women aged 25 to 29 years had the highest rate of hospitalised injury due to physical assault (110.6 per 100,000 population) compared with other age groups, closely followed by women aged 19 to 24 years who had the second highest rate (95.5 per 100,000 population).

For more information, see supplementary data tables.