Introduction
Millions of Australians participate in sport and physical activity. Nearly 85% of Australians aged 15 or over participated in some form of sport or physical activity at least once during 2023–24, and just over 47% participated at least 3 times a week, according to the Australian Sports Commission’s (ASC) AusPlay survey (ASC 2024).
While participation has many health and social benefits, it also involves a risk of injury. The AusPlay survey suggests that about 19% of participants in 2023–24 were injured while participating in some form of sport or physical activity (ASC 2024).
Sometimes, an injury will lead to hospital admission. This report analyses the 62,100 sports injuries that were serious enough to require a hospital admission in 2023–24. It looks at the demographics of those injured and the types of injuries that led to hospitalisation, including 10-year trends.
Participation and injury rates are presented for a range of sports categories. Those categories with some of the highest injury hospitalisations are discussed in more detail, including basketball, cycling, equestrian activities, various football codes, ice and snow sports, netball, roller sports, soccer and wheeled motor sports.
The report does not include information on people who sought treatment at hospital emergency departments, general practitioner clinics, sports medicine centres, or from allied health practitioners such as physiotherapists as national data for these services is not readily available at this time. The AIHW is working with the ASC to improve the availability of information about sports injuries under the National Sports Injury Data Strategy.
This report complements other studies by the AIHW into the economics of participation and injury in sport and physical activity as well as those referenced in the Clearinghouse for Sport.
Data sources and limitations
This report uses admitted patient care data from the AIHW’s National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD), and sports participation estimates from the Australian Sports Commission’s (ASC) AusPlay survey (ASC 2024).
National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD)
Data about sports injury hospitalisations are drawn from admitted patient care records in the NHMD. If enough detail about the cause of the injury was obtained from the patient, then a particular type of sports activity will be assigned.
A single injury can lead to a person having more than one episode of care in hospital. The methodology for this report was designed to minimise double counting, where possible.
A person can be hospitalised with multiple injuries, some of which will be more serious than others. This report only presents data about the main injury – known as the principal diagnosis.
AusPlay
AusPlay is the largest and most comprehensive survey on sports and physical activity participation in Australia. It reaches an annual target sample size of 40,000 adults (aged 15 and over) who have been living in Australia for at least 12 months. Survey results include participation estimates in a range of activities.
This report only includes estimates for participants aged 15 and over.
Data limitations
These data sources do not fully capture either sports injury hospitalisations or sports participation in Australia. For hospital admissions, injuries are attributed to a sports activity if clinicians are informed about the activity and record it, but this will not always happen. Therefore, the sports injuries reported here are likely to be an undercount.
The AusPlay survey is completed by people who are members of online research panels, who may be less physically active than the rest of the population (who may spend less time on technology). As a result, rates of sports injury hospitalisations per participant in the Sports participation and injury section of this report should be treated as estimates, and comparisons made with this in mind. For more details, see AusPlay’s technical documents and supporting information.
What we don’t know
This report only includes sports injuries that were serious enough to require a hospital admission. This excludes injuries that were treated in the emergency department only, at a GP clinic, or by an allied health practitioner such as a physiotherapist, because there is no national dataset for these services.
It is likely that only a small proportion of sporting injuries lead to a hospital admission, and these are typically more severe injuries. The AusPlay survey estimated that around 19% of participants in 2023–24 were injured while participating in a sport or some other form of physical activity (ASC 2024). A New South Wales Population Health Survey from 2005 estimated that less than 3% of organised sport injuries in persons aged 16 and over lead to a hospital admission (Mitchell et al. 2008).
It is also possible that many injuries that develop over time might have been caused by sports participation, including chronic injuries, but were not directly linked to a particular sport. If a person seeks treatment months or years after they played sport, they may not report the connection between their injury and a sport to their clinician, or it may not be recorded.
The AIHW is working with the Australian Sports Commission to improve the information about sports injury under the National Sports Injury Data Strategy.
For more on the scope, accuracy, and comparability of these data sets, see the technical notes.
Australian Sports Commission (ASC) (2024) AusPlay, ASC, Australian Government, accessed 25 October 2024.
Mitchell R, Boufous S & Finch CF (2008) Sport/leisure injuries in New South Wales: Trends in sport/leisure injury hospitalisations (2003-2005) and the prevalence of non-injury hospitalisations (2005), New South Wales Injury Risk Management Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, accessed 16 January 2024.