Aborigines are the least healthy sub-population in Australia, and have a life expectancy considerably lower than the rest of the population. For the period 1989-91, the expectation of life at birth for Western Australian Aborigines was estimated to be 56.9 years for males and 62.5 years for females, compared to 75.3 years and 80.9 years respectively for the non-Aboriginal population.(159)
A number of surveys have shown that a greater proportion of the Aboriginal population smokes than among the rest of the population.(168) Western Australian research(159) has shown increased rates of tobacco caused age standardised hospital admissions among Aboriginal men and women (see Section 3.15 above).
Age standardised death rates from tobacco caused disease are also higher among the Aboriginal than the non-Aboriginal population.(159) In the period 1989-1991 among Aboriginal males, the death rate was 2.4 times that of non-Aboriginals. Among Aboriginal females, the death rate was 3.7 times higher than that of non-Aboriginals. These deaths also occur at a younger age than among the non-Aboriginal population. Among Aborigines, 49% of male deaths and 48% of female deaths due to smoking occurred before the age of 55 years, compared to 11% of male and 10% of female non-Aboriginal deaths.(159)
The same study showed that the three most frequently occurring specific causes of death due to tobacco use were the same for both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations; however death rates were higher for Aborigines, especially for respiratory and circulatory diseases. For ischaemic heart disease, the Aboriginal death rates due to smoking were 3.2 times higher for males and 6.8 times higher for females than in non-Aboriginals; lung cancer due to smoking occurred at a rate 1.4 times higher in Aboriginal males and 1.2 times higher in Aboriginal females than in non-Aborigines; and chronic bronchitis caused by smoking occurred at rates 2.0 and 3.5 times higher for Aboriginal men and women respectively compared to the non-Aboriginal population.(159)
In the Northern Territory, the two leading causes of death in Aboriginal men and women are circulatory and respiratory diseases, both diseases in which tobacco plays a major causative role.(160) Lung cancer is the most common cancer in NT Aboriginal men and the second most common cancer among NT Aboriginal women.(5)