Data sources

The AIHW operates under a strict privacy regime which has its basis in Section 29 of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 (AIHW Act). Section 29 requires that confidentiality of data relating to persons (living and deceased) and organisations be maintained. The Privacy Act governs confidentiality of information about living individuals. The AIHW is committed to reporting that maximises the value of information released for users while being statistically reliable and meeting legislative requirements described in the AIHW Act and the Privacy Act.

Hospitalisations

Hospitalisations data are sourced from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD). The NHMD is a compilation of episode-level records from admitted patient morbidity data collection systems (APC NMDS) in Australian public and private hospitals. It includes episodes of care for admitted patients in all public and private acute and psychiatric hospitals, free standing day hospital facilities and alcohol and drug treatment centres in Australia. Hospitals operated by the Australian Defence Force, corrections authorities and in Australia's offshore territories may also be included. Hospitals specialising in dental, ophthalmic aids and other specialised acute medical or surgical care are included. Data quality statements for the NHMD are available on AIHW Hospitals. For more information about data contained in the NHMD refer to the AIHW Hospitals technical notes.

Emergency department presentations

Emergency department (ED) data are sourced from the National Non-admitted Patient Emergency Department Care Database (NNAPEDCD). Data quality statements for this dataset are available on the AIHW Hospitals website. For the 2024-25 NAPEDC National Minimum Data Set (NMDS)/ National Best Endeavours Data Set (NBEDS), diagnosis information was reported using the ED ICD-10-AM version 12 shortlist that can be found on the website of the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority.

For more information about data contained in the NNAPEDCD refer to the Hospitals technical notes for recent years.

Deaths

Deaths data are sourced from the AIHW National Mortality Database (NMD). When a person is declared dead, information about their death is recorded on a death certificate by either a medical practitioner or coroner. Registration of all deaths is compulsory in Australia and is the responsibility of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages of the relevant state or territory, under jurisdiction-specific legislation.

Deaths data are assembled, coded, and published on behalf of the Registrars by statistical agencies. These agencies have varied since 1900 and have included state-based offices and what is now the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Information is also provided to the ABS via the National Coronial Information System (NCIS) for those deaths certified by a coroner.

The ABS codes causes of death according to the International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems, 10th revision (ICD-10) (WHO 2019) and, after checks and de-identification, creates the Cause of Death Unit Record File (CODURF).

The CODURF contains characteristics of the person who died (for example, age, sex, and Indigenous status), and characteristics of their death (for example, causes of death, date, and place where the person usually lived). The AIHW maintains these data in the NMD.

The data quality statements underpinning the AIHW NMD can be found on the following ABS web pages:

For more information on mortality coding refer to Causes of Death, Australia Methodology, 2024.

Population data

Population data are used for demographic analyses and as the denominator in calculating rates. All population level calculations are based on the estimated resident population (ERP) calculated as at the midpoint of each financial year. For example, for the reporting period 2024–25, the denominator population is the June 2024 ERP + the June 2025 ERP, divided by 2. This is used as the denominator for age‑specific/crude and age‑standardised rates.

The ERP as at 30 June 2001 is used as the standardising population throughout the report (ABS 2003).

All population data are sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as follows:

First Nations people & non-Indigenous Australians

Since estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) populations are only provided for 30 June, estimates for 31 December are calculated by adding 2 consecutive 30 June estimates and dividing by 2 (for example, the estimate for 31 December 2024 is calculated by adding estimates for 30 June 2024 and 30 June 2025 then dividing by 2).

For non-Indigenous Australians, population denominators were derived by subtracting the estimated First Nations population from the Australian national estimated resident population, as at 31 December of the relevant year.

Notes on data

The following challenges apply to the data sources utilised in the Injury in Australia report:

  1. All data informing this report are sourced from administrative data collected for the primary purpose of health care provision within jurisdictions. Analyses of these data to inform the Injury in Australia report is a secondary use and as such, data may be missing or unavailable in the detail necessary to answer specific questions. This may be because information was not reported by patients, was not recorded in the clinical notes or was not coded into administrative records. Additionally, cause of death records contain only summary data, not detailed information around the circumstances of death, and definitive diagnoses informing the cause death may not be available from the data sourced during emergency department (ED) presentations or episodes of care prior to death occurring.
  2. All data sources informing this report are primarily quantitative in nature, therefore Injury in Australia presents descriptive analyses of patterns and trends but cannot address qualitative questions around why certain patterns or trends are occurring.
  3. Injury in Australia does not currently use linked data sources and cannot identify the numbers of people injured within any data source. Individuals can experience multiple injuries and present to multiple health care facilities within any time period. The methods described in the technical notes count cases of injury in order to obtain estimated injury incidence.
  4. External cause data (such as place, mechanism or intent) is fundamental for understanding the causes and circumstances of injury presentations to emergency departments (EDs). Jurisdictions do collect information about the external cause and circumstances of injury, but there is currently no national standard for this data, and free text fields containing this data are currently unavailable for analyses. External cause information is therefore unavailable for injury related ED presentations.
  5. The data used in this report may be retrospectively updated by jurisdictions as records are updated, and timeseries data may therefore alter over time.
  6. Cause of death data becomes available to users for analysis following cause of death coding, validation and release by the ABS and approval from the Australian Coordinating Registrar. As a result, injury death reporting lags behind hospitalisation and ED reporting by 1 financial year.
  7. Reported data may compare groups that vary widely in case count, largely due to differences in population size (for example, the population of New South Wales is more than 30 times as large as the Northern Territory population, and the population of Major cities is nearly 90 times that of Very remote areas). This means that year‑to‑year changes in counts or rates for the smaller-population groups might be subject to large random variation and such fluctuations could potentially be misinterpreted as meaningful rises or falls.

States and territories are primarily responsible for the quality of the data they provide. However, the AIHW undertakes extensive validations on receipt of data. Potential errors are queried with jurisdictions, and corrections and resubmissions may be made in response to these queries. The AIHW does not adjust data to account for possible data errors or missing values, except where stated. The AIHW takes active steps to improve the consistency of these data over time.

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