How do suicide rates differ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians?
From 2001 to 2020, age-standardised rates:
- fluctuated in Indigenous males from a low of 25.1 deaths per 100,000 population (75 deaths) in 2008 to 42.9 (147 deaths) in 2020
- could not be reported for some years for Indigenous females due to small numbers of deaths by suicide; however, for those years that can be reported, rates fluctuated from 7.2 deaths per 100,000 population (22 deaths) in 2006 to 15.2 (58 deaths) in 2019
- for Indigenous people ranged from 1.4 to 2.4 times that of non-Indigenous Australians.
In 2020:
- suicide accounted for 5.5% of all deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples while the comparable proportion for non-Indigenous Australians was 1.9%
- one-quarter (25%) of all deaths by suicide in Indigenous people were female, this was greater than that seen in the non-Indigenous population (23% females).
Kreisfeld and Harrison (2020) found that over the period 2001–02 to 2015–16, there was an annual average rise of 0.4% in suicide rates for Indigenous males, while over the most recent 5-year period (2011–12 to 2015–16) the annual rate for Indigenous males increased by an average of 6.6%; however, these changes in rates were not statistically significant (see Glossary). For Indigenous females, over the period 2001–02 to 2015–16, modelling showed a statistically significant annual average rise in suicide rates of 5.8%; however, over the most recent 5-year period 2011–12 to 2015–16, rates fell by 2.5% per year, although this finding was not statistically significant (AIHW: Kreisfeld & Harrison 2020).
Caution should be exercised when analysing trends in deaths by suicide for Indigenous Australians due to data quality issues, including the under-identification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in deaths data and the uncertainties in estimating and projecting the size and structure of the Indigenous population over time. Numbers of deaths by suicide and age-standardised rates are reported for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory only. Data for Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory have been excluded (see Technical notes for further information). It is also important to remember that age-standardised rates based on only a small number of deaths by suicide will exhibit a large amount of variation and that increases in numbers of deaths by suicide and rates should be treated with caution as improvements in identifying Indigenous status among deaths data may (at least in part) account for the rise in case numbers and rates.
Suicide contributes to premature mortality in Indigenous Australians, especially in the younger age groups. Data from the National Mortality Database and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Causes of Death from 2016 to 2020 showed the rates of suicide deaths per 100,000 people among Indigenous Australians were 16.7 and 45.7 in those aged 0–24 and 25–44 years respectively. These rates were 3.2 and 2.8 times as high as in non–Indigenous Australians in the respective age groups (5.3 and 16.4 per 100,000 respectively). This difference was less pronounced in the 45–64 age group, with a suicide rate of 20.4 among Indigenous Australians compared to 17.2 in non-Indigenous Australians. However, non-Indigenous Australians had a higher suicide rate in the 65 and over age group than Indigenous Australians (12.8 compared to 7.7 per 100,000).
Suicide deaths also represent a higher proportion of deaths in young Indigenous Australians age groups compared to non-Indigenous Australians. From 2016 to 2020, almost a quarter (24%) of deaths in Indigenous Australians aged 0–24 were due to suicide, compared to 17% in non-Indigenous Australians. However, in older age groups, non-Indigenous Australians had a higher proportion of death by suicide than Indigenous Australians. For instance, about 5% of all deaths were attributed to suicide in non-Indigenous Australians aged 45-64 years, compared to 2% in Indigenous Australians.