Key Points
ABS survey shows 29.4% diabetes increase among Australian adults
Males more likely to have diabetes across age groups
Disadvantaged areas experience higher diabetes prevalence
Global diabetes rates doubled between 1990 and 2022
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Monday released the first data from its National Health Measures Survey (NHMS), which was conducted between 2022 and 2024, revealing that 6.6 per cent of Australian adults have diabetes, up from 5.1 per cent in 2011-12.
It represents a 29.4 per cent increase in the prevalence of diabetes among Australian adults over the 12-year span.
The NHMS, which involved the collection of biomedical samples from participants aged 5 years and over from across Australia, found that another 2.7 per cent of Australian adults are at high risk of diabetes.
It found that males were more likely to have diabetes than females across all age groups.
"Adults living in the most disadvantaged areas are more likely to have diabetes than those in the least disadvantaged areas," James Mowles, ABS head of health statistics, said in a media release.
According to a World Health Organisation-supported study published in The Lancet in November 2024, global diabetes prevalence in adults rose from 7 per cent to 14 per cent between 1990 and 2022.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the time that the increase in diabetes is "alarming" and called for countries to urgently take action to "bring the global diabetes epidemic under control".
A separate report released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) in December estimated that 5.1 per cent of Australians, or just over 1.3 million people, were living with diagnosed diabetes in 2021, Xinhua news agency reported.
The report said that the number of people living with diabetes in Australia increased almost 2.8-fold between 2000 and 2021.
According to the WHO, about 830 million people worldwide have diabetes, the majority living in low- and middle-income countries. More than half of the people living with diabetes are not receiving treatment. Both the number of people with diabetes and the number of people with untreated diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past decades.
