Fifty per cent of total deaths potentially avoidable: Report

The most recent update of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) Deaths in Australia report shows that in 2017 there were a total of 160,909 recorded deaths in Australia.
 
Data from the report was analysed as ‘underlying cause of death’ – that is, the disease or injury that contributed directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence that resulted in death.
 
The AIHW highlights the importance of an analysis of underlying cause of death to help guide targeted interventions.
 
The leading underlying cause of death for males in 2017 was coronary heart disease, followed by lung cancer, then dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
 
For females, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease were the leading cause of death, followed by heart disease and cerebrovascular disease.
 
The majority (66%) of deaths were among older people aged 75 or over, with the median age at death 78 years for males and 85 years for females.
 
Of the total deaths, 50% were potentially avoidable within the current healthcare system among people aged younger than 75, and of these, 64% were male and 36% were female. These included deaths from conditions that are potentially preventable through individualised care, or treatable through existing primary care or hospital care.

Potentially avoidable death rates fell from 193 to 104 deaths per 100,000 population (46%) between 1997 and 2017. Rates fell from 253 to 134 deaths per 100,000 males (47%) and from 136 to 74 per 100,000 females (46%).
 
When broken down to age groups, suicide ranked the number one leading underlying cause of death in people aged 15–44, lung cancer for those aged 65–74 and coronary heart disease for those aged 45–64 and 75 and over.
 
Examining trends in death is also incorporated into the AIHW report, providing important observations about the population’s health and contributing to the evaluation of health strategies, interventions, and policy-making.
 
Continuing declines in death rates have been recorded over a long period of 1907–2017, with the age-standardised death rate falling by 72% for males and 76% for females.
 
Trends in life expectancy have also improved dramatically for both males and females, with boys born in 2015–17 expected to live 33 years longer, and girls 34 years longer, compared with life expectancies from the last century.
 
The AIHW also updated two companion reports of interactive data, General Record of Incidence and Mortality (GRIM) data and Morality Over Regions and Time (MORT) books, which present visualisations of historical and recent deaths data, as well as deaths data for specific geographical areas, premature deaths, potential years of life lost and potentially avoidable deaths.

cause of death life expectancy mortality preventive healthcare