Females accounted for two thirds of dementia deaths in Australia in 2022, making it the leading cause of death for women.
Dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease) was the second leading cause of death overall for Australians according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures out today, followed by ischaemic heart disease.
And for the first time since the 1970s, an infectious disease has appeared in the top five leading causes of death: that disease is COVID-19, which was the third leading cause of death in 2022, accounting for 9,859 of 190,939 deaths.
More than 60 per cent of the 18,500 deaths by ischaemic heart disease were men, with heart disease accounting for more than one in ten deaths.
Rounding out the top five causes of death in 2022 across the full population were cerebrovascular diseases (strokes) and lung cancer. ABS head of mortality statistics Lauren Moran said that when combined, these five causes of death accounted for more than a third of all deaths.
The median age at death was 85 for women in 2022, and 79.7 for men.
Heart disease is also the leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. However, the leading causes then differ to the general population and include diabetes, chronic lung diseases, lung cancer and suicide.
Suicide was the leading cause of premature death across the full population in 2022, accounting for 3,249 deaths at a median age of 45.6, compared with a median age of death of 82.2 for the total population. Men account for around three quarters of those who died by suicide.
Meanwhile, the ABS reports that 70 women were killed due to “assaults” compared with 215 deaths in 2021. These numbers are not yet final and are advised to be interpreted “with caution” as the ABS is set to release updated stats in early 2024.
Of the 91,015 women who died in 2022, 10,976 died from dementia. The overall dementia death rate has increased by 23.9 per cent over the last decade.
Breast cancer was the seventh leading cause of death for women overall and the second leading cause of cancer deaths. COVID-19 was the fourth leading cause of death for women, and heart disease the second.
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