The number and rate of deaths by suicide differs between states and territories and across different regions of Australia.
Patterns of deaths by suicide between states and territories can reveal insights that may be masked by results for the whole of Australia and may help to highlight different risk factors and assist in better targeting of suicide prevention activities.
In 2020, the age-standardised suicide rate ranged from 10.1 per 100,000 population in Victoria to 20.4 per 100,000 in the Northern Territory. The highest number of deaths by suicide was in New South Wales (876), followed by Queensland (759), Victoria (694), Western Australia (381) and South Australia (234).
For more information, visit Suicide deaths by states & territories and Suicide & self-harm by geography.
In 2020, 197 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died by suicide. Age-standardised rates of Indigenous deaths by suicide have increased over time, from 22.7 per 100,000 persons in 2013 to 27.9 per 100,000 persons in 2020 – more than double the rate for non-Indigenous Australians in 2020 (11.8 per 100,000 persons).
Young Indigenous Australians experience suicide more than 2 times as high as young non-Indigenous Australians. In the 5 years from 2016 to 2020, suicide rates for Indigenous Australians were highest for those aged 0–24 (16.7 per 100,000) and 25–44 (45.7 per 100,000) – compared with other age groups. 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.
For more information see Indigenous health and wellbeing.
In Australia, there were more than 28,000 cases of intentional self-harm hospitalisations in 2019–20.
What are the sources of data on intentional self-harm?
Understanding the scale of the problem of intentional self-harm in Australia is difficult because many cases of self-harm are unreported, unless medical treatment is required.
Only those patients admitted to hospital for intentional self-harm are currently routinely reported in national data sets. Hospital admissions data are collated as an annual release with a 12-month lag. Data are also available from ambulance attendance records and national population surveys such as the Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (Department of Health, 2015).
Visit Intentional self-harm hospitalisation and Ambulance attendances for more information.
Sex and age differences
Rates of hospitalisations for intentional self-harm are higher for females. This is the opposite of what is seen in deaths by suicide, where rates are higher for males. This may, in part, be due to differences between methods used by males and females – with males tending to use more lethal methods than females.
In 2019–20:
- Nearly two-thirds of people (63%) hospitalised for intentional self-harm injuries were female (over 18,000 hospitalisations).
- The rate of intentional self-harm hospitalisations was higher for females than males (141 per 100,000 population compared with 84).
Young people have the highest rates of hospitalisation for intentional self-harm
In 2019–20 the age and sex-specific rate was highest for females aged 15–19 (552 hospitalisations per 100,000 population), followed by females aged 20–24 (340 per 100,000 population). For more information see Intentional self-harm hospitalisations by age groups.