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 2007, 292 people died as the result of an assault. This was more than the 284 people who died from that cause in the five-year period 1998–2002, but considerably fewer than the 356 people who died from an assault in 1988–1992.

The provisional age-standardised assault mortality rate for the year 2007 was 1.3 deaths per 100,000 population, down from 1.6 per 100,000 in 2006. In the early 1980s, the assault mortality rate was around 1.5 deaths 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 by the late 1990s. 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, 1980–2007

Source: Ministry of Health
Notes: (1) The 2007 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 2003–2007 were highest among adults aged 25–44 years (2.1 deaths per 100,000), followed by youth aged 15–24 years (1.9 per 100,000) and those aged 45–64 years (1.2 per 100,000). Children under 15 years and older people aged 65 years and over had the lowest rate (each 0.8 deaths per 100,000). For children, the risk of dying from an assault is highest at younger ages. In the five years to 2007, the assault death rate for children under 5 years was 1.9 deaths per 100,000, more than six times higher than the rate for 5–14 year olds (0.3 per 100,000). In all age groups, rates were lower in the period 2003–2007 than they had been in the mid-1980s. For youth aged 15–24 years and people aged 65 years and over, assault death rates fell by more than one-third over that period.

Males are more likely than females to die from an assault. The provisional 2007 age-standardised assault death rate was 1.5 deaths per 100,000 for males, and 1.1 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, 1983–1987 to 2003–2007

Source: Ministry of Health
Note: The 2007 data is provisional.

Ethnic differences

Māori are significantly more likely than non-Māori to die as the result of an assault. In 2007, the age-standardised rate for Māori was 2.8 deaths per 100,000 compared with 1.0 per 100,000 for non-Māori. The age-standardised rate for Māori males (3.4 per 100,000) was higher than the rate for Māori females (2.3 per 100,000).

In the five years from 2003 to 2007, Māori children aged under 15 years died from an assault at an average annual rate of 1.7 deaths 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 assault death rates are standardised to the 1980 OECD population and may differ from the rates shown in this indicator. The most recent data is for the years 2003–2008, for 29 OECD countries. New Zealand’s assault death rate in 2007 was 1.3 deaths per 100,000, compared to the OECD median of 0.9 per 100,000. New Zealand’s male assault death rate in 2007 was the same as the OECD median for males (1.5 deaths per 100,000 males), while our female assault death rate (1.1 deaths per 100,000 females) was considerably higher than the OECD median for females (0.6 deaths per 100,000 females). New Zealand’s male assault death rate was the same as Ireland’s, higher than Australia’s (0.8 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 assault death rate in the United States (9.9 per 100,000). New Zealand had a higher female assault death rate than Canada (0.9 deaths per 100,000 females), Australia (0.5 per 100,000), the United Kingdom (0.3 per 100,000) and Ireland (0.2 per 100,000), but a lower rate than the United States (2.5 deaths per 100,000).⁹⁷

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 in that period (1.2 per 100,000 children under the age of 15 years).

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