Socioeconomic areas

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Leading causes of death Potentially avoidable causes of death

Socioeconomic indexes have been developed to help understand differences between relative socioeconomic disadvantage (ABS, 2023). The analysis in this report uses population data to group people by socioeconomic disadvantage. There are 5 groups (quintiles) which each contain 20% of the population, based on the socioeconomic ranking of the area they live in. This means that the people living in the 20% of areas with:

  • the greatest level of disadvantage are described as living in the lowest socioeconomic areas.
  • the least level of disadvantage are described as living in the highest socioeconomic areas.

In the 2022–2024 period, death rates decreased with increasing socioeconomic position:

  • people living in the lowest socioeconomic areas have a higher rate of death than people living in the highest socioeconomic areas (631 and 418 deaths per 100,000).
  • the age-standardised death rate for males living in the lowest socioeconomic areas was almost 1.6 times the highest socioeconomic areas, and for females it was 1.4 times as high (Table S7.6).

Leading causes of death

The leading causes of death differ across socioeconomic areas for males and females.

For males, in 2022–2024:

  • coronary heart disease was the leading cause of death across all areas, but the death rate was 1.7 times as high for those living in the lowest socioeconomic areas than for those living in the highest (85 and 49 deaths per 100,000 respectively).
  • the death rate for COPD is more than three times as high for those living in the lowest socioeconomic areas than for those living in the highest (Table S7.6)

For females, in 2022–2024:

  • dementia was responsible for 1 in 10 for those living in the lowest socioeconomic areas and 1 in 7 deaths for those living in the highest.
  • the death rate for COPD and lung cancer is more than twice as high for those living in the lowest socioeconomic areas than for those living in the highest (Table S7.6).

Figure 7.3: Leading underlying causes of death in Australia, by socioeconomic area and sex, 2022–2024

Coronary heart disease was the leading underlying cause of death in the two lowest socioeconomic areas, where dementia including Alzheimer's disease was the leading cause of death in other areas.

Coronary heart disease was the leading underlying cause of death in the two lowest socioeconomic areas, where dementia including Alzheimer's disease was the leading cause of death in other areas.

Potentially avoidable causes of death

In the 2022–2024 period, the potentially avoidable death rate increased with increasing socioeconomic disadvantage (Table S7.7). The age-standardised death rate for potentially avoidable causes of death for those living in the lowest socioeconomic areas is more than twice (2.3 times) as high as for those living in the highest socioeconomic areas.

The conditions contributing most to the differences in avoidable mortality (gap) between those living in lowest and highest socioeconomic areas were:

  • coronary heart disease (23% of the gap) for males
  • COPD (17%) and coronary heart disease (16%) for females.
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