Assault mortality

Relevance

Reducing interpersonal violence in families and communities is critical to social and personal wellbeing. This indicator measures deaths resulting from violence, the tip of the violence pyramid. Young children and youth are particularly vulnerable.

Current level and trends

In the five years to 2006, 307 people died as the result of an assault. This was more than the 284 people in the five-year period 1997–2001, but fewer than the 319 people in 1992–1996, and the 339 people in 1987–1991.

The provisional age-standardised assault mortality rate for the year 2006 was 1.6 per 100,000 population, down from 1.8 per 100,000 in 2005. In the early-1980s, the assault mortality rate was around 1.5 per 100,000. It increased to around 2.0 per 100,000 between 1986 and 1992, falling back to around 1.5 per 100,000. It should be noted that rates based on small numbers are volatile, and trends can be difficult to discern over the short term.

Figure SS1.1 Age-standardised assault mortality rate, by sex, 1980–2006

Source: Ministry of Health
Note: (1) 2006 data is provisional (2) Age-standardised to the WHO standard world population

Age and sex differences

Five-year average annual assault death rates for the period 2002–2006 were highest among youth aged 15–24 years (2.2 deaths per 100,000), followed by adults aged 25–44 years (2.1 per 100,000) and those aged 45–64 years (1.3 per 100,000). Children under 15 years and older people aged 65 years and over had the lowest rates (0.8 and 0.9 per 100,000 respectively). For children, the risk of dying from an assault is highest at younger ages. In the five years to 2006, the assault death rate for children under 5 years was 1.8 deaths per 100,000, more than four times higher than the rate for 5–14 year olds (0.4 per 100,000). In all age groups, rates were lower in the period 2002–2006 than they had been in the late-1980s.

Males are more likely than females to die from an assault. The provisional 2006 age-standardised death rate was 2.1 per 100,000 for males, and 1.2 per 100,000 for females. The rise in the assault mortality rate in the late-1980s and early-1990s was the result of an increase in the male rate in that period. 

Figure SS1.2 Five-year average annual assault mortality rate, by age, 1987–1991 to 2002–2006

Source: Ministry of Health
Note: 2006 data is provisional

Ethnic differences

Māori are significantly more likely than non-Māori to die as the result of an assault. In 2006, the age-standardised rate for Māori was 4.7 deaths per 100,000 compared with 1.0 per 100,000 for non-Māori. The age-standardised rate for Māori males (5.7 per 100,000) was higher than the rate for Māori females (3.9 per 100,000).

In the five years from 2002 to 2006, Māori children aged under 15 years died from an assault at an average annual rate of 1.6 per 100,000 children. Over the same period, non-Māori children died at an average annual rate of 0.5 per 100,000 children.

International comparison

OECD homicide death rates are standardised to the 1980 OECD population and differ from the rates shown in this indicator. The most recent data is for the years 2003–2007. The median homicide death rate for 28 OECD countries over this five-year period was 1.2 per 100,000 for males and 0.7 per 100,000 for females. New Zealand’s homicide death rates in 2005 were higher than the OECD medians for males (1.9 per 100,000) and considerably higher for females (1.6 per 100,000). New Zealand’s male homicide death rate was higher than Australia’s (1.0 per 100,000 males) and the United Kingdom’s (0.5 per 100,000), lower than Canada’s (2.3 deaths per 100,000) and substantially lower than the male homicide death rate in the United States (9.9 per 100,000). New Zealand had a higher female homicide death rate than Canada (0.9 deaths per 100,000 females), Australia (0.6 per 100,000) and the United Kingdom (0.3 per 100,000), but a lower rate than the United States (2.5 per 100,000).¹⁰¹

International comparison information for child maltreatment deaths is not available on an annual basis. Results of a 2003 UNICEF study of child maltreatment deaths in rich countries in the 1990s showed that New Zealand had the third highest child maltreatment death rate (1.2 per 100,000 children under the age of 15 years).

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