Socioeconomic status

Rates presented for socioeconomic regions are not comparable to rates presented elsewhere in the report due to the different age groupings used for rate calculation. This is due to limitations in the age groupings of the available SEIFA population data. Rates presented in this section will be limited to women aged 20 years and over. 

The following counts of 2022–23 records were not able to be captured in analysis for this section as age of patient was 19 years old:

  • 11,317 injury emergency department (ED) presentations 
  • 2,494 injury hospitalisations
  • 24 injury deaths

Please see Technical notes for more information.

Women living in the most disadvantaged socioeconomic areas have the highest rates of injury hospitalisation and death

Women (aged 20 years and over) living in the Most disadvantaged socioeconomic areas had higher age-standardised rates (ASR) of injury hospitalisation and death compared to women living in the Least disadvantaged socioeconomic areas, for all causes of injury in 2022-23 (Figure 53). The rate of injury ED presentations was also highest among women living in the Most disadvantaged areas, being 1.7 times higher than the rate for their counterparts living in the Least disadvantaged areas (ASR 6,136.1 and 3,607.4 per 100,000 population respectively).

The largest gap in rates was for injury hospitalisations due to assault, with the rate for women living in the Most disadvantaged areas being 6.9 times higher than that for women living in the Least disadvantaged areas (ASR 186.7 and 26.9 per 100,000 population respectively).

The rate of injury death due to transport accidents was 2.9 times higher for women living in the Most disadvantaged areas compared to women living in the Least disadvantaged areas (ASR 4.6 and 1.6 per 100,000 population respectively).

Unintentional fall was the leading cause of injury hospitalisations and deaths across all socioeconomic areas. For injury deaths, suicide was consistently the second most common cause of death for all socioeconomic areas.

Figure 53: Age-standardised rate (per 100,000) of injury ED presentations, hospitalisations and deaths among women aged 20 years and over by socioeconomic area and cause, Australia, 2022–23

Injury hospitalisations, ED presentations and deaths by cause of injury and socioeconomic area showing for all injuries, women living in the most disadvantaged areas had the highest rates of hospitalisation, death and ED presentation. When looking at cause specific breakdown, this patten was consistent for injury hospitalisations for all causes and for most causes for injury death.

Injury hospitalisations, ED presentations and deaths by cause of injury and socioeconomic area showing for all injuries, women living in the most disadvantaged areas had the highest rates of hospitalisation, death and ED presentation. When looking at cause specific breakdown, this patten was consistent for injury hospitalisations for all causes and for most causes for injury death.

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

Notes:

  1. Rates for ED presentations by socioeconomic areas will only be displayed under cause ‘All external causes’ as ED presentations are not reported by cause due to current data quality and poor capture of external causes.
  2. Only includes records where patient was aged 20 and over and patient’s sex recorded as female.
  3. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
  4. Rates where underlying numerator count is under 20 are excluded from display.
  5. Socioeconomic status is based on the usual place of residence of the patient. Records where socioeconomic status information was missing are excluded from display in table.

For more information, see supplementary data tables.

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