Overseas-born Australian residents can expect to live longer than those born in Australia, according to new research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
The AIHW report into mortality inequalities compares death rates of Australian-born residents to those from the UK and Ireland, other parts of Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world.
It found Asian-born Australian residents had the lowest death rate of these groups, 36 per cent lower than Australian-born residents.
Asian-born residents had lower mortality rates for all 10 leading causes of death except liver cancer, where the death rate was twice that of Australian-born residents.
UK and Ireland-born residents had a similar profile to Australian-born residents for the 10 leading causes of death, but with higher rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
While Australia has a comparatively high life expectancy of 82 years, the research finds some demographic groups are dying early from potentially avoidable causes.
People living in remote areas have death rates 1.5 times as high as people in major cities.
The report said those higher rates are predominantly due to diabetes and land transport accidents.
The death rate among Indigenous Australians is nearly twice that of non-Indigenous Australians.
Women are continuing to live longer than men with the figures showing the death rate for males is 1.5 times as high as the rate for females.
AIHW spokesperson Louise York said the research showed many factors affect death rates, with particular population groups more disadvantaged than others.
“Many of these patterns for 2009-11 were similar to patterns from 10 years earlier, showing that mortality inequalities are long-standing in Australia,” she said.