Overexertion

Injuries from overexertion are typically the result of physical stress or overuse of the body. This can include from lifting heavy objects, repetitive movements, motion sickness, or lack of food or water.

Overexertion was the eighth leading cause of injury hospitalisations in 2023–24 and the fourteenth leading cause of injury deaths in 2022–23.

Overexertion injuries resulted in:

Deaths due to this cause are relatively rare so are described in limited detail in this article.

Types of overexertion

In 2023–24, the most common type of injury causing hospitalisations due to overexertion was overexertion and strenuous or repetitive movements (99.7%), with very few hospitalisations falling into the other categories of overexertion, travel and motion and lack of food or water, or other privation, which each accounted for less than 0.5%.

Note: Age-standardised rates per 100,000 population.

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

Overexertion injuries over time

Over the past decade, the rate of overexertion injury hospitalisations has decreased slightly, with age-standardised rates ranging from 60.2 in 2014–15 to 52.3 per 100,000 in 2023–24 (Figure 1). The hospitalisation rate in 2023–24 was 5.2% lower than the previous 5-year average rate of 55.1 per 100,000 population.

Figure 1: Number and age-standardised rate of injury hospitalisations caused by overexertion, by financial year, Australia

Notes:

1. Bars are number of hospitalisations, and the line graph represents age-standardised rates (per 100,000 population).
2. Break in series between 2016–2017 and 2017–18. See technical notes for detail.

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

The number of deaths due to this cause remained relatively small across the decade when compared to other causes of injuries. Rates are not presented due to small counts (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Number of injury deaths caused by overexertion, by financial year, Australia

Note: Bars are number of deaths.

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

What injuries occur?

Body part injured and type of injury

In 2023–24, the hip and lower limb was the body part most often identified as the main site of injury in overexertion hospitalisations (25.8 per 100,000 population), followed by the trunk (10.3 per 100,000) and shoulder and upper limb (8.6 per 100,000) (Figure 3).

Soft-tissue injuries were the most common type of injury for people who were hospitalised due to an overexertion injury (43.9%, 6,339 hospitalisations) followed by fractures (28.7%, 4,149 hospitalisations) and dislocations (11.2%, 1,615 hospitalisations).

Activity while injured and place of occurrence

Severity

Injuries caused by overexertion were overall less severe than the average of all injury hospitalisations. The average number of days in hospital for overexertion injuries was lower than the average for all hospitalised injuries in 2023–24. This was also the case for percentages of cases that included time in an ICU and cases that involved continuous ventilatory support. The rate of in-hospital deaths was also lower (Table 2).

Notes:

1. Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) 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 involves rehabilitation procedures.
2. ‘All injuries’ includes overexertion injuries in the total calculations.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

Age and sex

Rates of hospitalisation and death caused by overexertion injuries were higher among males and differ by age (Figure 4).

For overexertion injury hospitalisations in 2023–24:

• 8,391 cases (58%) were males
• the age-standardised rate for males (62.6 per 100,000 population) was 1.5 times that for females (41.7 per 100,000)
• males aged 15–24 had the highest rate (84.7 per 100,000).

For overexertion injury deaths in 2022–23:

• 14 deaths (82%) were males

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

First Nations people

Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (First Nations people):

• there were 616 hospitalisations due to overexertion injuries in 2023–24 (59.8 per 100,000 population)
• males were 1.2 times as likely as females to be hospitalised (65.6 and 54 per 100,000)
• hospitalisation numbers were highest among people aged 25–44 (Figure 5)

Figure 5: Number and crude rate of overexertion injury hospitalisations among First Nations people, by age and sex, Australia, 2023–24

Note: Bars are number of hospitalisations, and the line graph represents crude rates (per 100,000 population). 

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Comparison between First Nations and non-Indigenous Australians

First Nations people, when compared with non-Indigenous Australians, were 1.3 times as likely to be hospitalised due to an overexertion injury in 2023–24 (adjusted for age).

Between 2017–18 and 2023–24, the overexertion-related hospitalisation rate for First Nations people has increased by an average annual rate of 0.5% compared to an average annual decrease of 1.9% for non-Indigenous Australians.

Figure 6: Age-standardised rates of overexertion injury hospitalisations by Indigenous status and financial year, Australia

Notes:

1. Age-standardised rates per 100,000 population.
2. ‘Non-Indigenous’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, AIHW National Mortality Database, ABS National, state and territory population, ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

The rate of overexertion injury hospitalisations was highest among the 25–44 age group for First Nations Australians and among the 65 and above for non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 7). Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 7: Overexertion injury hospitalisations, by Indigenous status, by age group, Australia, 2023–24

Notes:

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. ‘Non-Indigenous’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, ABS National, state and territory population, ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

State and territory

The states and territories with the highest rates of overexertion injury hospitalisation in 2023–24 were:

• Australian Capital Territory (73.2 per 100,000 population)
• Queensland (67.0 per 100,000)
• Northern Territory (66.0 per 100,000).

Numbers and rates of injury deaths cannot be reported by state and territory due to low numbers.

Figure 8: Age-standardised rate of overexertion injury hospitalisations, by state or territory of usual residence, Australia, 2023–24

Notes:

1. ‘State and territory’ refers to the state and territory of usual residence for the individual.
2. Age-standardised rates per 100,000 population.

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

Remoteness

In 2023–24, the rates of overexertion injury hospitalisation were lowest in the most (Very remote) and least (Major cities) remote areas of Australia (44.9 and 48.0 per 100,000 population, respectively) (Figure 9).

People living in Remote areas had the highest rate of hospitalisation (66.2 per 100,000) and were 1.4 times as likely to be hospitalised for an overexertion injury in 2023–24 as people living in Major cities.

For information on how statistics are calculated by remoteness, see the technical notes.

Socioeconomic areas

Level of socioeconomic disadvantage in Australia impacts the risk of injuries. People living in the second most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of Australia, compared to the least socioeconomically disadvantaged were 1.3 times as likely to be hospitalised by an overexertion injury in 2023–24.

Data details

• Technical notes: how the data were calculated
• Data tables: download the full tables
• Glossary

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