Many Australians do not engage in regular physical activity, increasing their risk of chronic diseases and poor mental health (AIHW 2024). While being physically active has many health and social benefits, it also carries a risk of injury which can counteract these beneficial effects (AIHW 2025). However, the extent to which injury risk impacts the overall benefit of physical activity is unclear due to a lack of evidence that considers both benefit and risk of increased physical activity across a population.

To address this knowledge gap, the AIHW and the University of Melbourne modelled the benefits of different physical activity levels undertaken by Australians and their risk of injury over time to estimate the health and economic impacts across each activity level.

Key findings

  • The current level of physical activity in Australia over 20 years, compared to no activity, increased total income by $16.9 billion and reduced health spending by $9.8 billion.
  • The current level of physical activity contributed to 1.3 million health‑adjusted life years (HALYs), and prevented 28,700 deaths (before 2041), and 12,100 premature deaths.
  • Physical activity levels in Australia increased between 2018 and 2022. Over 20 years, maintaining the level of activity undertaken in 2022 compared to the 2018 activity level saved $1.45 billion in health spending and increased HALYs by 151,000.
  • The overall benefits of physical activity on health spending were greater for females than males due to the higher injury risk for males.
  • Increasing physical activity in the lowest activity group (0-600 MET-minutes per week) to meet the physical activity guidelines (600-1200 MET-minutes per week) reduces health expenditure more than shifting to maximum activity levels due to injuries gained by increasing physical activity.

Read the complete analysis: Future health gain from increasing physical activity in Australia, including multiple physiological effects of physical activity, and falls and injury risk: A simulation study

Changing physical activity levels of Australians

The analysis explored how changing current physical activity levels of Australian adults would impact health system spending, income, HALYs, premature deaths (deaths before age 75) and all deaths, over 20 years under various physical activity scenarios. The scenarios included:

  1. shifting the entire population to the highest level of physical activity, equivalent to 2.5 hours of brisk walking per day (or greater than 4,200 MET-minutes per week)
  2. moving those in the population considered sedentary to a level of activity that meets Australian physical activity guidelines of more than 150 minutes of brisk walking per week (or 600 MET-minutes per week)
  3. changing physical activity back to lower pre-COVID (2018) levels
  4. shifting the entire population to sedentary (to show the benefit of current activity levels)
  5. shifting the population in each physical activity level to the next highest, until the second highest level (3,600-4,200 MET-minutes per week) reaches the highest level (greater than 4,200 MET-minutes per week).

Where do I get more information?

This analysis is part of a broader project funded by the Australian Sports Commission to improve the availability of information on injuries that arise from participating in physical activity, such as sport and active recreation. See the National Sports Injury Data Strategy for more information on this project.

For other analyses conducted by the AIHW on the cost of participation and injury in sport and physical activity, see: