Suicide & self-harm monitoring
Overview
If at any point you feel worried about harming yourself while viewing the information on this website – or if you think someone else may be in danger – please stop reading and seek help.
Suicide and self-harm monitoring data
Suicide and Self-harm Monitoring brings together key statistical data on suicide and self-harm from multiple national sources that will be updated regularly as new data become available. Here, you can examine the data through interactive visualisations and read information on the demographics, trends, methods and risk factors of suicide and self-harm in Australia.
This website represents only one part of a comprehensive program of work on suicide and self-harm in Australia by the AIHW (for more information visit About the Suicide and Self-harm Monitoring System).
Important points to remember about deaths by suicide
Although it is a relatively rare cause of death – in 2023, 1.8% of all deaths registered were by suicide (3,214 suicide deaths of 183,131 total) – it can have devastating and long-lasting effects on those left behind.
Suicide can affect anyone – regardless of their personal characteristics and family background – but some populations are at greater risk. There is also no single reason why a person chooses to end their life – the reasons are often complex. For information on risk factors see Risk factors.
Monitoring the number, trends and rates of suicide in Australia is key to understanding who is at risk and for the planning and targeting of suicide prevention activities.
It is our endeavour that by bringing together various data sources we can strengthen the evidence base to build a more coherent picture of suicide and self-harm in Australia to improve the effectiveness of suicide prevention.
Why is it important to collect data about suicide and self-harm?
Monitoring of suicide and intentional self-harm – how many people harm themselves, when, where and how – can provide a better understanding of the nature of suicide and self-harm in Australia and help determine who may be at increased risk. Reporting of this data can raise community awareness of suicide and self-harm, further research, improve responses and support services for those that need them, and inform the design and targeting of suicide prevention activities.
Considerations when using these data
There are several considerations to keep in mind when examining suicide and self-harm data and information in Australia.
The assembling and national reporting of deaths by suicide has up to an 18-month time lag. Deaths by suicide may be presented by year of occurrence of death or year of registration. Although reporting of deaths by suicide by year of death can provide more reliable information on trends in occurrence than reporting by year of registration, the latest data available may underestimate the number of deaths, especially those in the later months of the year, due to a lag in registration. For this reason, and unless otherwise specified, year of registration of death has been used to allow the latest year of data to be compared with previous years. In both cases, the latest years of data are coded with preliminary causes of death information and may underestimate causes of death that are usually certified by a coroner, including deaths by suicide. For more information on how deaths are registered, coded and updated, visit Codes and classifications.
State and Territory suicide registers can provide more timely data on suspected deaths by suicide. Recent surveillance data from suicide registers are preliminary and may change over time, typically upon completion of the coronial investigation. Suicide registers are operational in all Australian jurisdictions. The AIHW contributed to the development of suicide registers in South Australia (established in 2022), the Australian Capital Territory (established in 2021) and the Northern Territory (established in 2023).
Suicide registers in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland publish monthly data reports on suspected or confirmed suicide deaths in their respective jurisdictions. The AIHW receives data on suspected or confirmed suicide deaths from several other jurisdictions’ registers on a fortnightly or monthly basis. The data can be used to inform governments' decision making and responses to emerging issues that may influence suicide risk in the community, such as cost of living concerns. Due to the highly sensitive nature of coronial investigations, the AIHW will not publicly release jurisdictional data unless they have been published by the relevant data custodians (visit Monthly suicide registers).
Hospital admissions data are collated as an annual release with a 12-month lag.
Ambulance data are currently available for New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory for selected months from 2018 to September 2023, with monthly data from January 2021 (visit Ambulance attendances: Suicidal ideation, and suicidal and self-harm behaviours). Further information on the collection of data and sources is available in the Data sources and technical notes.
Deaths by suicide are statistically rare events. Small numbers can raise privacy and confidentially issues but also statistical concerns. For this report, values based on small numbers of deaths, hospitalisations for intentional self-harm or ambulance attendances have been suppressed to maintain data confidentiality, and/or avoid publishing statistics of low reliability. Visit Data sources and technical notes for further information.
The statistics on deaths by suicide reported here fluctuate from one period to the next – mostly due to small counts (and in the case of females, very small counts) – especially in many smaller subgroups (for example, individual age groups or small geographic areas). Estimates of rates are also subject to random variability. Statistics based on small numbers of deaths by suicide should be interpreted with caution and all rates and their comparison with rates in other populations should be reported in context. For further insight into the methodological challenges and statistical issues of monitoring suicide and self-harm, visit Suicide Mortality in Australia: Estimating and Projecting Monthly Variation and Trends From 2007 to 2018 and Beyond.
- Due to large data sets, visualisations may take time to load.
- Visualisations are compatible with Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Firefox.
- Each panel may contain more than 1 visualisation. If so, click on the tab at the top of the panel or the button in the bottom right to switch between them. You can interact with the visualisations to see the specific data you are interested in by either selecting from the filter(s) at the bottom of the chart, or in the case of maps, from the pop-up box by clicking on an area of interest.
- Hover over each data point to see the underlying data and, if available, further details.
- The Data downloads page provides the source data as Excel (.xlsx) files. The relevant source supplementary table is cited at the bottom of each visualisation.
- Each visualisation may be downloaded and exported or shared.
- A print friendly PDF of all pages of text and the default visualisations related to suicide and self-harm may also be downloaded – click on the ‘Download all data pages’ button. Visit Data sources and technical notes for information about data sources, data quality and methodology.