CANBERRA: Dementia was the leading cause of death in Australia in 2024, becoming the country's top killer disease for the first time on record, according to official data released on Friday (Nov 14).
The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, overtook ischaemic heart diseases as the country's leading cause of death last year.
Of the 187,268 deaths registered in Australia in 2024, the ABS said that 17,549 were attributed to dementia.
The number of deaths caused by dementia has increased by over 160 per cent from 6,550 in 2006, while the number of deaths caused by heart diseases has fallen by 29.6 per cent over the same period from 23,132 to 16,275 in 2024.
The ABS attributed the rise of dementia as a cause of death to Australia's ageing population.
It said that 68.2 per cent of all deaths in 2024 were people aged over 75 years, up from 63.3 per cent in 2004.
"People are now more likely to live to an age where they have a higher risk of developing dementia. This is especially true for women who have longer life expectancies. Today's data shows that 62.4 per cent of people who died from dementia were women," said ABS head of mortality statistics Lauren Moran.
Dementia has been the leading cause of death for women in Australia since 2016. Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death for men, causing 10,153 deaths in 2024.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said in a report released in September that the number of Australians living with dementia is expected to increase from 425,000 in 2024 to more than one million by 2065.
Chronic lower respiratory diseases were the third-most common cause of death in 2024, followed by cerebrovascular diseases and lung cancers.
Drug and alcohol-induced deaths both increased in 2024, the ABS said, and 3,307 people died by suicide. - Xinhua
