The Australian death rate in 2020 was the lowest on record

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-06-09 00:01

Australia; NSW; VIC; QLD; SA; WA; TAS; NT; ACT

Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

The Australian death rate in 2020 was the lowest on record, according to updated data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 627.8 people per 100,000 died of any cause that year, following a steady downward decline over decades. The updated data includes causes of death and region-specific data, including the first data on COVID-19 deaths in the country.

Media release

From: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

MEDIA ALERT: Release of AIHW deaths data, 2020

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is giving journalists embargoed access to Deaths in Australia, General Record of Incidence of Mortality (GRIM), and Mortality Over Regions and Time (MORT) books.

These products include information up to 2020 (including preliminary deaths due to COVID-19 in 2020).
Local media outlets can use the information to produce stories on leading causes of death and mortality rates in their region.
The AIHW will not issue a media release but statistical advice is available.

Deaths in Australia:

Presents updated data to 2020 on deaths, causes of death and life expectancy in Australia.
Deaths data are a vital measure of a population’s health, and provides information on patterns of diseases that cause death, by population groups and over time.

GRIM data:

Presents historical and recent deaths data in an interactive format. Contains age and sex-specific counts and rates by cause of death, alongside other summary measures.
GRIM data for some causes of death start at 1907 and they are the only national electronic tabulations of deaths data by cause of death registered before 1964.

MORT books:

MORT Excel workbooks present mortality data and leading causes of death by sex for specific geographical areas in 2016–2020.
They include number of deaths, rates per population, median age at death, premature deaths, potential years of life lost and potentially avoidable deaths.
New interactive mapping visualisations are also available presenting data on the total number of deaths and population rates in 2020, as well as leading causes of death in 2016–2020 by geographical areas.

Data are available for the following geographical areas:

Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (GCCSA), 2016–2020
Primary Health Network (PHN), 2016–2020
Local Government Area (LGA), 2016–2020
Remoteness area, 2016–2020
Socioeconomic group, 2016–2020
State and territory, 2016–2020
Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4), 2016–2020
Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3), 2016–2020

Journal/
conference:

Organisation/s: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Funder: AIHW

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.