Summary
Diabetes is one of the leading threats to the health of Australians and it is well documented that the rate of new cases of diabetes is on the increase. This short bulletin presents the latest available national data on new cases of Type 1 diabetes in Australia. The data come from the National Diabetes Register (NDR) held at the AIHW.
- There were 982 new cases of Type 1 diabetes in children aged 0–14 years registered on the NDR during 2004. There were another 877 cases in people aged 15–39 years.
- This equates to an age-standardised annual incidence rate of 24.6 new cases of Type 1 diabetes per 100,000 population for 0–14 year olds in 2004, and 12.3 for 15–39 year olds.
- The rate of new cases among 0–4 year olds was significantly lower than the rates for 5–9 year olds and 10–14 year olds for both sexes.
- No significant gender differences were found among registrants with Type 1 diabetes aged 0–14 years. However, among registrants aged 15–39 years there was a significantly higher rate among males—an average age-adjusted annual rate of 15.9 new cases per 100,000 population for males compared to 8.7 for females.