Suicide and hospitalised self-harm in Australia

The AIHW report, Suicide and hospitalised self-harm in Australia: trends and analysis, indicates that suicide death rates for males, adjusted for age, fluctuated around 20 deaths per 100,000 population per year in the period 1921 to 2010, while rates for females were about 5 deaths per 100,000 population per year during most of this period.

Male rates of suicide by hanging have more than doubled since the early 1980s, as have female rates, although at lower levels. Suicide by hanging has been the most common mechanism of suicide in Australia since 1989 for males and since 1997 for females.  Shooting by firearms was the most common mechanism of suicide by males in Australia for at least 60 years, to the mid-1980s, since when it has declined significantly.

Suicide rates have tended to increase with the remoteness of the person's place of residence and for the periods 2007-08 to 2010-11, suicide rates for Indigenous males and females were around twice as high as the corresponding rates for other Australians.

Rates for females hospitalised as a result of intentional self-harm were at least 40% higher than male rates over the period from 1999-00 to 2011-12, and poisons accounted for almost 82% of all hospitalisations due to intentional self- harm over the period from 1999-00 to 2011-12.