Full response for a spokesperson for the One in Three Campaign

The One in Three Campaign is a group that aims to “raise public awareness of the existence and needs of male victims of family violence and abuse”. In information published on the group’s website under the headline “Misinformation about family violence”, the group stated:

The latest available data shows that the top five causes of death, disability and illness combined for Australian women aged 15-44 years are anxiety and depression, migraine, type 2 diabetes, asthma and schizophrenia.

Violence (let alone the subset of family violence) doesn’t make the list.

This quote was available on the website in March 2018, but has since been updated in response to The Conversation’s request for sources and comment to support the statistics.

In response to The Conversation’s request for information for inclusion in this FactCheck, a spokesperson for The One in Three Campaign provided the following:

I have looked into the relevant data source and have discovered that since we posted the statement in question on our website, more recent data has been published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

As we are a small group of volunteers, unfortunately we lack the time and resources to keep sources such as this up to date unless new data is brought to our attention, as you have just done (thank you!).

We will revise our website. The original statement in question comes from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Burden of Disease study 2003 (published in 2007).

The most recent data comes from the Australian IHW Burden of Disease study 2011 (published in 2016).

The revised statistic (updated on our website) is as follows:

The top five causes of death, disability and illness combined (i.e Disability-Adjusted Life Year, or DALY) for Australian women aged 15-44 years are:

Anxiety disorders, Depressive disorders, Back pain and problems, Asthma, and Other musculoskeletal conditions

Homicide and violence (of which family violence is a subset) ranks 26th on the list of causes.

The source data is as follows:

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2016). Australian Burden of Disease Study: impact and causes of illness and death in Australia 2011.

Here is a link to the Excel Spreadsheet containing the latest 2011 data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. You will need to refer to Sheet 5: “S13.5: DALY by disease, sex and broad age group, Australia, 2011”. The relevant data is in Column O (“F 15–44”).

Read the FactCheck here.