Drug-Induced Deaths: methodology

What this metric measures

Deaths where drugs were the underlying cause, age-standardised per 100,000 people (ABS Causes of Death).

Why it matters: A direct measure of the harm from illicit and prescription drugs, and of whether harm reduction is working.

Source & provenance

Publisher

ABS Causes of Death (Cat. 3303.0) - drug-induced deaths, age-standardised death rate, persons

Update frequency

annual

Licence

CC BY 4.0

How the score is computed

The score is a 0–100 normalisation of the latest observation, compared to a baseline window. The traffic-light rating (RAG) reflects both the absolute level and the recent trend.

Direction

Lower is better

Trend window

24 months

Baseline

Last 10 years

{
  "red_min_pct_of_baseline": 110,
  "amber_max_pct_of_baseline": 110,
  "green_max_pct_of_baseline": 95
}