Dementia is poised to become the leading cause of death in Australia.
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), released this week, showed Ischaemic heart disease was still the nation’s leading cause of death in 2023, but was closely followed by dementia-related deaths.
ABS Head of Mortality Statistics Lauren Moran said Australia had seen a drop in heart disease mortality and a rise in dementia deaths over time.
Ms Moran said improvements in medical treatment and health care and an ageing population was changing the nation’s leading causes of death.
“The latest data shows that there are now less than 250 deaths separating the top two leading causes. Heart diseases were the cause of 9.2 percent of deaths, while dementia, which includes Alzheimer’s disease, accounted for 9.1 percent of deaths in 2023,” she said.
“Dementia has been the leading cause of death for women since 2016, making up 12.2 percent of female deaths and 6.4 percent of male deaths in 2023.”
Ms Moran said women had longer life expectancies than men and, as such, were more likely to live to an age when they had a heightened risk of developing dementia.
The latest data saw mortality rates stabilise overall, with the mortality rate at 5.13 deaths per 1000 people, down from 5.48 in 2022.
Ms Moran said deaths from COVID-19 almost halved, dropping from 9862 in 2022 to 5001 in 2023, while numbers and rates of death fell for most other leading causes.
“Despite these drops, virus-related deaths and mortality rates from all causes were still higher than in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we saw record low mortality rates.”
She said alcohol continued to be a significant burden on mortality, with 1667 deaths in 2023.
“This meant an alcohol-related death rate of 5.6 per 100,000 people, down from 6.2 in 2022, but similar to that recorded in 2021.”
Ms Moran said 3214 people died by suicide in 2023 (a rate of 12.1 per 100,000 people), with men making up around three quarters of those deaths.
She said the median age at death for people who died by suicide was 45.5, which meant suicide was the leading cause of premature death in 2023.
Read the full data release: Causes of death, Australia
