Trends in injury deaths, Australia, 1999–00 to 2016–17

This section provides:

• a summary of all drowning deaths in 2016–17 that are identifiable in the deaths data
• a summary of unintentional drowning deaths in 2016–17
• a description of trends in unintentional drowning deaths from 1999–00 to 2016–17.

What methods were used?

The criteria given in Section 1.3 were applied, and records that included the following ICD-10 codes were included in this section:

• the UCoD was Accidental drowning and submersion (W65–W74)
• the MCoDs included codes for Accidental drowning and submersion (W65–W74) and for Injury (S00–T75 or T79)
• the MCoDs included codes for Drowning and non-fatal submersion (T75.1) and for an Unintentional external cause of injury (V01–X59).

Suicide and homicide deaths (UCoD X60–Y09) were excluded. The concepts underlying the abbreviations used in this section are defined in the Glossary.

Relevant terms and information about the data used in this section are summarised in boxes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 4.1. Further information on methods is provided in Appendix A.

Overview of drowning deaths

Drowning occurs in many circumstances, and deaths are assigned codes from several parts of the ICD.

Table 4.1 summarises all of the drowning deaths in 2016–17 that can be identified by means of the ICD-coded cause-of-death data.

Unintentional drowning deaths, the subject of this section, accounted for almost three-quarters (71%) of all drowning deaths in 2016–17 (Table 4.1). Analyses of deaths reported as due to Intentional self-harm by drowning and submersion, Assault by drowning and submersion, and Drowning and submersion, undetermined intent are not included in this section.

Table 4.1: All identifiable drowning deaths, 2016–17

Terminology in this report	Coverage in this report	ICD-10 codes	Number	%
Unintentional drowning (a)	Drowning	UCoD W65–W74; or MCoD S00–T75, T79 and W65–W74; or MCoD T75.1 and V01–X59	243	70.6
Intentional self-harm by drowning and submersion	Suicide	MCoD X60–X84 and MCoD T75.1	77	24.4
Assault by drowning and submersion	Homicide	MCoD X85–Y09 and MCoD T75.1	2	0.6
Drowning and submersion, undetermined intent	Undetermined intent	MCoD Y10–Y34 and MCoD T75.1	20	5.8
Total drowning deaths			344	100.0

Note:

1. Includes deaths that meet the inclusion criteria for the section Transport crashes in which drowning occurred.

Source: AIHW NMD.

How many deaths in 2016–17 were due to unintentional drowning?

There were 243 unintentional drowning deaths, 1.8% of all injury deaths for this period (Table 4.2). About 2.7 times as many males as females drowned in 2016–17.

Table 4.2: Key indicators for unintentional drowning deaths, by sex, 2016–17

Indicator	Males	Females	Persons
Number	178	65	243
Percentage of all injury deaths	2.2	1.2	1.8
Crude rate (deaths per 100,000 population)	1.5	0.5	1.0
Age-standardised rate (deaths per 100,000 population)	1.4	0.5	1.0

Source: AIHW NMD.

Drowning tends to occur at younger ages than injury from most other causes—52% of drowning deaths occurred among people aged under 45 (compared with 28% of all injury deaths), and 11% occurred among children aged 0–4 (compared with 0.8% of all injury deaths) (Table 4.3).

Table 4.3: Unintentional drowning deaths, by age and sex, 2016–17

Age group	Males		Females		Persons
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
0–4	15	8.4	12	18.5	27	11.1
5–14	9	5.1	3	4.6	12	4.9
15–24	22	12.4	5	7.7	27	11.1
25–44	48	27.0	13	20.0	61	25.1
45–64	38	21.3	13	20.0	51	21.0
65+	46	25.8	19	29.2	65	26.7
Total	178	100.0	65	100.0	243	100.0

Source: AIHW NMD.

State or territory of usual residence

For all jurisdictions, except for Victoria and South Australia, age-standardised rates for drowning deaths were close to or over the national rate of 1.0 deaths per 100,00 population (Table 4.4).

The Northern Territory recorded the highest rate (2.3 deaths per 100,000 population), while South Australia recorded the lowest rate (0.4 deaths per 100,000 population). These results must be treated with some caution, because relatively small numbers in the Northern Territory and the other less-populated jurisdictions can cause rates to fluctuate markedly from year to year.

Table 4.4: Unintentional drowning deaths, by state/territory of usual residence, 2016–17

Indicator	State/territory of usual residence
	NSW	Vic	Qld	WA	SA	Tas	ACT	NT
Number	81	40	53	40	8	10	5	6
%	33.3	16.5	21.8	16.5	3.3	4.1	2.1	2.5
Age-standardised rate (deaths per 100,000 population)	1.0	0.6	1.1	1.5	0.4	1.9	1.1	2.3

Source: AIHW NMD.

Remoteness of usual residence

The age-standardised rate of drowning deaths rose with increasing remoteness of usual place of residence—in Very Remote areas it was almost 8.6 times as high as in Major cities (Table 4.5). These results should be treated with some caution, due to the small numbers in Remote and Very remote areas, which can cause rates to fluctuate markedly from year to year in these areas.

Table 4.5: Unintentional drowning deaths, by remoteness of usual residence, 2016–17

Indicators	Remoteness of usual residence(b)
	Major cities	Inner regional	Outer regional	Remote	Very remote
Number(a)	130	56	29	5	11
%	56.2	24.1	12.4	2.3	4.9
Age-standardised rate (deaths per 100,000 population)	0.7	1.3	1.3	2.0	6.0

Notes:

1. Excludes 12 deaths where remoteness was not reported.
2. Derived using the ASGS classification.

Source: AIHW NMD.

Socioeconomic area

The age-standardised rate of unintentional drowning deaths rose with increasing disadvantage. The rate for people living in the lowest socioeconomic areas (1.2 deaths per 100,000 population) was twice as high as the rate for people living in the second highest socioeconomic areas (0.6 deaths per 100,000 population).

Table 4.6: Unintentional drowning deaths, by socioeconomic area, 2016–17

Indicator	Socioeconomic area
	1—lowest	2	3	4	5-highest
Number	62	53	46	32	38
%	25.5	21.8	18.9	13.2	15.6
Age-standardised rate (deaths per 100,000 population)	1.2	1.1	0.9	0.6	0.8

Note: Excludes 12 deaths where socioeconomic area was not reported.
Source: AIHW NMD.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

The age-standardised unintentional drowning death rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was 2.2 times the rate for non-Indigenous Australians (Table 4.7). Separate counts and rates for Indigenous males and females have not been published, due to small numbers.

Table 4.7: Key indicators for unintentional drowning deaths, by Indigenous status and sex, 2016–17

Indicator	Indigenous			Non-Indigenous
	Males	Females	Persons	Males	Females	Persons
Number	. .	. .	13	124	48	172
Age-standardised rate (deaths per 100,000 population)	. .	. .	2.2	1.5	0.5	1.0
Rate ratio(a)	. .	. .	2.2	. .	. .	. .
Rate difference(b)	. .	. .	1.2	. .	. .	. .

Notes:

1. Rate ratios are standardised rates for Indigenous males, females, and persons divided by standardised rates for non-Indigenous males, females, and persons.
2. Rate differences are standardised rates for Indigenous males, females, and persons minus standardised rates for non-Indigenous males, females, and persons.

Includes data for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory (see Box 1.2).

Source: AIHW NMD.