NZ Injury Facts

General Injury Statistics ~~ Injuries by Category ~~ Ethnic Differences ~~ Further Information

This page summarises some basic facts and figures around injuries in New Zealand. As much as possible, the most recent statistics are quoted, and every effort will be made to keep these figures up-to-date. Where applicable, links to further information are provided.

IPNANZ gratefully acknowledges the help of Gay Richards (Injury Prevention Information Centre - University of Auckland) in compiling this information.

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General Injury Statistics

In 2007/08, over 1,600 New Zealanders died as the result of injury. That's 134 people each month, or around four each day. In fact, someone in New Zealand is injured every 17 seconds.

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) received 1.8 million claims and paid $2.4 billion in total claims costs.

The New Zealand Injury Prevention Strategy has identified six national injury prevention priority areas which collectively account for at least 80 percent of injury deaths and serious injuries in New Zealand. These are:

• Motor vehicle traffic crashes
• Suicide and deliberate self harm
• Falls
• Workplace injuries (including occupational disease)
• Assault
• Drowning.

Injury is the leading cause of death from age 1 through to 34. It is also a significant cause of morbidity, being one of the two main causes of inpatient treatment in public hospitals for those aged 5 to 34.

Gulliver, P.J., Simpson, J.C. (2007) Injury as a leading cause of death and hospitalisation. Fact sheet 38. Dunedin: Injury Prevention Research Unit, University of Otago (PDF, 36Kb).

Injury - Leading Causes

• For people 20 to 74 years of age, suicide is the leading cause of injury resulting in death.
• For children aged 5-9, motor vehicle traffic crashes where the child is a pedestrian are the leading cause of injuries resulting in death
• For 10-19 year olds, motor vehicle traffic crashes, where the person is a motor vehicle occupant are the leading cause of injuries resulting in death. 
• Motor vehicle traffic crashes are the second major cause of injuries resulting in death for people aged 20-84.
• Falls are the leading case of injury resulting in hospitalisation throughout the lifespan, accounting for 40 percent of all injury hospitalisations.

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Injuries by Category

Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes 

The most recent data available is from the Ministry of Transport's monthly overview of crash statistics December 09.

• Deaths: 384
• Reported injuries: 14,858
• Hospitalisations: 7,929

Ministry of Transport The social cost of road crashes and injuries (PDF 383 Kb).

According to ACC statisticss for the year to 30 June 2007, there were 400 deaths from vehicle crashes and almost 6000 injuries (45 percent of which were serious).
 
Suicide and Deliberate Self Harm

• Deaths  483 (2007) 
• Rate 11 per 100,000 people (average rate 2007)
• Hospitalisations  2679 (2007). 

See: Ministry of Health.  Suicide Facts: 2007 data.

Falls

• Deaths from unintentianal falls 377 (2006)  
• Rate 9 per 100,000 people (2006, National Injury Query System)
• Hospitalisations 18,839 (2008, National Injury Query System) 

See http://www.otago.ac.nz/ipru/Statistics/NIQS.html.  

According to ACC statisticss for the year to 30 June 2007, there were 396 deaths and 34,000 injured through unintentional falls.

Assault

• Deaths  19    
• Rate 0.5  per 100,000 people (2006, National Injury Query System)
• Hospitalisations   1,365  (2008, National Injury Query System)

See http://www.otago.ac.nz/ipru/Statistics/NIQS.html.  

Assault and Homicide Mortality Rates, 2002-2006 per 100,000 population

Māori Male 5.7, Māori Female 3.9,  Total (Māori) 4.7.
Total Non-Māori 1.

Assault and Homicide Hospitalisation Rates, 2002-2004, per 100,000 population

Workplace

• Sixty seven deaths were recorded as work related fatalities by ACC in 2007
• Work-related injury claims amounted to 231,300 in 2007, and ACC paid $227 million for treatment and rehabilitation.

See Claims for work-related injuries 2007, in Hot off the Press, Statistics New Zealand (PDF 187Kb).

According to ACC statistics to 30 June 2007, 39,000 people suffered workplace injuries, and there were 116 deaths.

Sport and Leisure

According to ACC stats for the year to 30 June 2007, there have been 96 sport and leisure related deaths, and 25,000 injuries.

This information is from the ACC publication Acctive (PDF 1.3Mb), published around September 2007.  

Drowning

• There were 98 deaths from drowning in New Zealand in 2009.

See http://www.watersafety.org.nz/ for more information.

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Ethnic Differences

Māori

The following information pertains to 2006, and was taken from Tatau Kahukura: Māori health chart book, Ministry of Health 2006, PDF 1.5Mb). Please access that document if you would like more information.

For Māori males, motor vehicle injury was the second leading cause of premature death, and suicide was ranked third. Suicide is also a major cause of premature death for non-Māori males.

Māori adults were more likely than non-Māori adults to suffer adverse health effects as the victims of violence, and mortality rates from assault and homicide were three times higher for Māori than for non-Māori.

Māori hospitalisation rates as the result of assault or attempted homicide were higher than those for non-Māori for both males and females. The disparity is largest for females: Māori females had an assault and homicide hospitalisation rate more than five times higher than that of non-Māori females.

Māori children had a slightly higher unintentional injury hospitalisation rate than non-Māori children (RR 1.1, CI 1.1-1.2), and an unintentional injury mortality rate twice that of non-Māori children (RR 2.0, CI 1.6-2.6).

Māori adults in both age groups (15-64 and 65+ years) had unintentional injury hospitalisation rates one-and-a-half times those of non-Māori adults. For adults aged 15 to 64 years, Māori had an unintentional injury mortality rate twice that of non-Māori. For older adults aged 65 years or more, Māori had a mortality rate 1.7 times the non-Māori rate.

Leading causes of unintentional injury:

• Māori children 0-14: Suffocation, motor vehicle traffic, drowning (order varies for male and female)
• Māori 14-64  Motor vehicle traffic, drowning, fall (male); motor vehicle traffic, poisoning, fire/hot object or substance (female)
• Māori 65+ motor vehicle traffic, fall, other transport, fire/hot object substance (male), fall, motor vehicle traffic, struck by/against (female)

Pacific peoples

Statistics for the years 1996-2000 indcate that per 100,000 people, 36 male Pacific people, and 13 females suffered an injury causing death. This averages to around 24 per 100,000 people.

The national average was 26 per 100,000 people (27 for males and 15 for females).

For the same period, 3,411 Pacific males per 100,000 people, and 2,141 females per 100,000 people, were hospitalised for injuries.  This averages out to 2,744 Pacific people per 100,000 in New Zealand.

The national average was 2,393 (2,852 for males and 1,945 for females). 

Injury (intentional and unintentional) is a leading cause of death in children, youth and young adulthood (along with breast cancer in young adult females).

Hospitalisation rates for unintentional injuries are higher for Pacific males and females than the all New Zealand average (by about 15 per cent).  This is despite the corresponding mortality rates being similar (or slightly lower).

Falls are the leading cause of injury hospitalisation and motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of injury mortality for Pacific peoples.

For more information see: Ministry of Health (2004) Tupu Ole Moui: Pacific Health Chart Book (PDF, 757Kb).

Asian people in New Zealand

Chinese, Indian and Other Asian children aged 0 to 4 years, have significantly lower rates of hospitalisation for unintentional injuries than the total population.

For Chinese, the rate is one-half that of the total New Zealand population, and Chinese pre-schoolers have significantly lower rates of hospitalisation for unintentional injuries than Indian pre-schoolers (both sexes). Chinese boys also have a significantly lower rate than other Asian boys.

Chinese, Indian and other Asian children aged between 5 and 14 years have significantly lower unintentional injury hospitalisation rates than the total population. Once again, Chinese children have the lowest rates of all groups - less than half that of the total New Zealand population.

For both boys and girls, the Chinese rates are significantly lower than the Indian or other Asian rates.

Chinese and other Asian youth have significantly lower intentional injury
hospitalisation rates than the total population (both sexes).

By contrast, Indian youth have a similar (males) or higher (females) rate than the total population.

Among all the young Asian ethnic groups, females have a higher intentional injury hospitalisation rate than their male counterparts. This pattern is consistent with other population groups in New Zealand and elsewhere.

For more information see: Ministry of Health (2006) Asian Health Chart Book (PDF, 606Kb).

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Further Information

For a source of standardised data see: Stephenson, S, Langley, J., Trotter, M. (2005). Impact of Injury: a description of the impact of injury resulting in death and hospital inpatient treatment by ethnicity, gender, age and mechanism. 2nd edition (PDF, 2.04Mb). Wellington: New Zealand Injury Prevention Strategy.

More information about injuries in New Zealand (and around the world) may be found on many of the pages we link to in our Links section.

Very short summaries of injury-related stories in New Zealand are listed in the fornightly IPNANZ update. You can access an archive of past issues here. 

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