Coronary heart disease (CHD) was involved in 1 in 5 deaths in 2022 when using all of the information included on the medical death certificate, according to a new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) release revealing what Australians are most likely to die from. What do Australians die from? highlights the most common causes involved in the 191,000 registered deaths in Australia in 2022. It uses all health conditions recorded on the death certificate to provide new insights into the health conditions causing and contributing to a person’s death, highlighting the interplay of multiple diseases and the role played by each.
Risk factors and psychosocial contexts involved in death are also explored. “Understanding what Australians die from is complex and the answer can vary, depending on how we assess the conditions involved,” AIHW spokesperson Michelle Gourley said. “Traditionally, statistics about how people die are based primarily on the initiating or ‘underlying’ cause of death, but death certificates also contain other information that can be useful in understanding why a death occurred.
” “For example, while the underlying cause of death for a person might be coronary heart disease, the death certificate might also record the health condition that led directly to death, such as acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). Other conditions that significantly contributed to the death such as hypertension, diabetes, alcohol use disorders, COVID-19 a.