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Trends in drug-related hospitalisations in Australian Capital Territory, 1999-2019

Author: Nicola Man, Agata Chrzanowska, Rachel Sutherland, Louisa Degenhardt and Amy Peacock

Resource Type: Other
Last updated: 24 Jun 2021

Trends in drug-related hospitalisations in Australian Capital Territory, 1999-2019

  • There were 768 hospitalisations with a drug-related principal diagnosis in ACT in 2018-19.
  • This is equivalent to 179 hospitalisations per 100,000 people, as compared to 125 hospitalisations per 100,000 people in 1999-00 (Figure 1).
  • The rate of hospitalisations was higher among females than males in 2018-19 (209 versus 149 hospitalisations per 100,000 people).
  • In 2018-19, the rate of hospitalisations was highest among the 20-29 age group, followed by the 10-19 and 30-39 age groups (340, 291, and 241 hospitalisations per 100,000 people, respectively).
  • The rate of hospitalisations was highest where there was a principal diagnosis indicating non-opioid analgesics (37 hospitalisations per 100,000 people), closely followed by amphetamines and other stimulants (36 hospitalisations per 100,000 people; Figure 2).
  • Over 99.8% of the population in Australian Capital Territory resided in major cities and the remaining resided in inner regional areas. For this reason, data on hospitalisations by remoteness area is not presented.


Figure 1. Age-standardised rate (per 100,000 people) of drug-related hospitalisations, by sex, Australian Capital Territory, 1999-00 - 2018-19.


Figure 2. Age-standardised rate (per 100,000 people) of drug-related hospitalisations, by drug identified in the principal diagnosis, Australian Capital Territory, 1999-00 - 2018-19.

Note: Age-standardised rates were not calculated if the number of hospitalisations was less than or equal to 10 (please refer to our methods document for details). Suppressed data are visible as gaps in the data series.


Funding

The Drug Trends program is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the Drug and Alcohol Program.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for data from the National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Recommended citation

Man, N., Chrzanowska, A., Sutherland, R., Degenhardt, L. & Peacock, A. (2021). Trends in drug-related hospital separations in Australia, 1999-2019. Drug Trends Bulletin Series. Sydney: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney.

Related Links

Hospitalisations data visualisations: https://drugtrends.shinyapps.io/hospital_separations

Hospitalisations methods document: https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource-analytics/trends-drug-related-hospitalisations-australia-1999-2019

For information on drug-induced deaths in Australia, go to: https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource-analytics/trends-drug-induced-deaths-australia-1997-2019

For more information on NDARC research, go to: http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/

For more information about the AIHW and NHMD, go to: https://www.aihw.gov.au/

For more information on ICD coding go to: http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/ https://www.ihpa.gov.au/what-we-do/icd-10-am-achi-acs-current-edition

For more research from the Drug Trends program go to: https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/program/drug-trends

Contact us

Email: drugtrends@unsw.edu.au