Overview

Life expectancy is one of the most commonly used measures of overall health of a population. It is expressed as either the number of years a newborn baby is expected to live, or the expected years of life remaining for a person at a given age, and is estimated from the death rates in a population. Examining causes, patterns and trends in death can also help explain differences and changes in the health of a population, contribute to the evaluation of health strategies and interventions, and guide planning and policy-making.

More reports and statistics on life expectancy & deaths can be found under Burden of disease and Injury.

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Latest findings

In 2019, child deaths rates (aged 0–4) were 27% lower than child death rates in 2009 (76 compared to 105 per 100,000)

In 2019, 48% of deaths for people aged less than 75 were potentially avoidable deaths

In 2019, there were 169,301 deaths registered in Australia

In 2019, there were 28,000 potentially avoidable deaths

Potentially avoidable death rates fell by 41% between 1999 and 2019 (from 176 to 103 deaths per 100,000 population)

Over the period 1907 to 2019, the age-standardised death rate fell by 74%

Highlights