Injury among women 2022–23

Falls have been the leading cause of injury hospitalisation and injury death for women over the past decade. In 2022–23, falls injuries caused: 

Deaths due to falls increased

Over the past decade, age-standardised rates for fall injury deaths among women have generally increased, apart from a drop in 2019–20 likely due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. Death rates due to falls are currently the highest of the last decade (Figure 14). 

Like deaths, injury hospitalisation rates due to falls experienced a drop in 2019–20 before peaking in 2020–21. 

The number of women hospitalised or dying due to falls related injuries has steadily increased over the past decade, with deaths in particular accelerating in the last 3 financial years.

Figure 14: Number and age-standardised rate (per 100,000) of injury hospitalisations and deaths due to falls 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.

Falls occurring on the same level are the leading type of fall resulting in an injury hospitalisation for women

In 2022–23, slipping tripping or stumbling on the same level was the most common fall type for injury hospitalisations (46,302 hospitalisations, ASR 348.7 per 100,000 population) and remained the most common fall type for all age groups (Figure 15).

60% of all unintentional fall deaths for women in 2022–23 were caused by an unspecified fall with the next most common cause of falls death being slipping tripping or stumbling on the same level followed by fall on and from stairs and steps.

Figure 15: Number and age-standardised rate (per 100,000) of injury hospitalisations and deaths due to falls by type of fall, 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.

The home was the most frequent place of occurrence for most falls injuries

Where place of occurrence was specified (79% of fall-related injury hospitalisations), the most common places of fall injuries in 2022-23 were:

For information on fall injuries within aged care facilities, please refer to the AIHW website GEN – Aged Care Data

Most hospitalisation records did not specify activity at time of fall

Nearly three-quarters (87,617 hospitalisations, 71%) of falls injury hospitalisations had insufficient information recorded for the activity the patient was undertaking when injured.

Women were most likely to fracture their hips or lower limbs from a fall

After adjusting for age, fractures were the most common type of injury observed for fall-related hospitalisations among women in 2022–23. The leading 3 fall-related injuries were:

1. Fracture to the hip and lower limb (excluding ankle and foot) (26,793 hospitalisations, ASR 202.4 per 100,000 population)
2. Fracture to the shoulder and upper limb (excluding wrist and hand) (22,463 hospitalisations, ASR 178.1 per 100,000 population)
3. Fracture to the trunk (thorax, abdomen, lower back, lumbar spine & pelvis) (13,817 hospitalisations, ASR 96.2 per 100,000 population) (Figure 16).

For all injury types except fracture and dislocation, the head and neck was the most commonly injured body part due to falls.

Figure 16: Number and age-standardised rate (per 100,000) of falls 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.
6. Injuries not described in terms of body location are excluded from display.

Fall injuries were generally less severe than other types of injuries

Women hospitalised for falls had hospital stays 1 day longer than the average for all hospitalised injury among women in 2022–23. For all other hospitalisation severity metrics, fall injuries were less severe than the average for all causes among women (Table 5).

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 falls in the total calculations.

The number of interventions received during falls injury hospitalisations increased with age

On average, women hospitalised for a fall injury in 2022–23 received 2.7 interventions per hospitalisation. This was slightly higher than the average of 2.5 procedures received per hospitalisation for all causes. The average number of interventions increased with age, women aged 65 and over had the highest average number of interventions, with 2.8 per hospitalisation.

Almost two-thirds (57%) of women hospitalised for a fall-related injury received physiotherapy during their hospitalisation and it was the leading intervention received across all age groups.   

Women aged 65 years and over were overrepresented in fall injury hospitalisations and deaths

Australia’s population is ageing, and women represent an increasing proportion of Australians aged 65 years and over (AIHW 2024a). As they age, women aged 65 years and over face an increased risk of falls due to multiple factors including musculoskeletal decline, osteoporosis, cognitive decline such as dementia (Lary et al. 2021), as well as their longer life expectancy compared to men (AIHW 2024b). For fall-related injuries among older Australians, please refer to AIHW report Falls in older Australians.

The overall rate of fall hospitalisations increased with age. Women aged 65 years and over accounted for 73% of all fall-related hospitalisations among women in 2022–23 (89,584 hospitalisations, 3,740.4 per 100,000 population) and were over 15 times more likely to be hospitalised for a falls injury than young women (2,318 hospitalisations, 240.4 per 100,000 population). The age patterns of injury hospitalisations varied by the specific fall types, with almost all types of falls showing that rate of injury hospitalisations either increased or decreased with age (Table 6). Fall from cliff, fall while being carried or supported by other persons and other fall from one level to another were the only types of fall where no age-related pattern was observed in 2022–23.

Women aged 65 years and over accounted for almost all deaths due to unintentional falls (3,437 deaths, 97%) in 2022-23, while no women aged 19 to 24 years died from an unintentional fall in the same year.

Table 6: Age patterns in fall injury hospitalisations and highest rates by age group

Type of fall	Age pattern of rate	Age group with highest rate (crude rate per 100,000)
Fall on same level from slipping, tripping and stumbling (W01)	Increases	65+ (1,415.1)
Other fall on same level (W18)	Increases	65+ (916.4)
Unspecified fall (W19)	Increases	65+ (826.8)
Fall on and from stairs and steps (W10)	Increases	65+ (228.9)
Fall involving bed (W06)	Increases	65+ (145.3)
Fall involving chair (W07)	Increases	65+ (88.4)
Other fall from one level to another (W17)	No age-related pattern	65+ (37.2)
Fall involving ice-skates, skis, roller-skates, skateboards, scooters and other pedestrian conveyances (W02)	Decreases	19-24 (24.3)
Fall involving wheelchair (W05)	Increases	65+ (22.5)
Fall on and from ladder (W11)	Increases	65+ (22.3)
Other fall on same level due to collision with, or pushing by, another person (W03)	Decreases	19-24 (19.0)
Fall from, out of or through building or structure (W13)	Increases	65+ (7.2)
Fall involving other furniture (W08)	Increases	65+ (3.0)
Fall involving playground equipment (W09)	Decreases	19-24 (2.6)
Diving or jumping into water causing injury other than drowning or submersion (W16)	Decreases	19-24 (2.3)
Fall while being carried or supported by other persons (W04)	No age-related pattern	19-24 (2.0)
Fall from cliff (W15)	No age-related pattern	19-24 (1.7)
Fall on same level involving ice and snow (W00)	Increases	65+ (0.6)
All fall types (W00-W19)	Increases	65+ (3,740.4)

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. Some fall types were exclude from display due to small case counts.

Women living with dementia experienced heightened risks of falls

The rate of dementia increases rapidly with age and nearly two-thirds (63%) of Australians with dementia are women (AIHW 2024c). Dementia impacts a person’s balance and gait control and people living with dementia are almost 3 times more likely to fall compared to cognitively healthy individuals (AIHW 2024d; Ordoobado et al. 2024). For more detail on injuries among people, including women, living with dementia, please refer to the recent AIHW report on Hospitalised falls among people living with dementia.