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.

Latest findings

Over the period 1907 to 2017, the age-standardised death rate fell by 74% In 2017, the leading cause of death for males was coronary heart disease (13%) In 2017, 50% of deaths for people aged less than 75 were potentially avoidable deaths In 2015–16, about 12,000 Australians were hospitalised as the result of a pedal cycle related injury Rates of hospitalised pedal cyclist cases rose for those 25 and older, and fell at younger ages From 1999–00 to 2015–16, injuries in older cyclists rose, and were more severe than those at younger ages From 1999–00 to 2015–16, 651 pedal cyclists died as the result of their injuries, an average of 38 deaths per year Pedal cyclists accounted for 1 in 5 of all injury hospitalisations from land transport crashes In 2017, there were 160,909 deaths registered in Australia In 2017, child deaths rates (ages 0–4 years) were 28% lower than child death rates in 2007 In 2017, there were almost 27,000 potentially avoidable deaths About 4 in 10 hospitalised pedal cyclists were injured off-road Fractures were the most common type of injury for hospitalised cyclists (55%) In 2017, the leading cause of death for females was dementia and Alzheimer disease (11%) Potentially avoidable death rates fell by 46% between 1997 and 2017 (from 193 to 104 deaths per 100,000 population)

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Highlights

Femalesborn in 2015–2017 can expect to live around 4 years longer than males—84.6 years compared with 80.5 years
160,909deaths were registered in Australia in 2017
2 in 3deaths registered were of people aged 75 and over in 2017
50%of deaths for people aged less than 75 were potentially avoidable deaths
A 74% fallin the age-standardised death rate was recorded between 1907 and 2017
Indigenous Australiansborn in 2015–2017 can expect to live around 8 years less than non-Indigenous Australians
3 in 10deaths were due to circulatory diseases
Coronary heart diseasewas the leading cause of death was for males (13%)
Dementia and Alzheimer disease was the leading cause of death was for females (11%)
Remote and Very remote areas have mortality rates that are 1.3 and 1.6 times as high as Major cities, respectively