Dementia now accounts for more than one in 10 Australian deaths for the first time as advocates warn of a continued surge in the condition as the population ages.
More than 19,000 people (10.1 per cent) died from dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, in 2025, according to analysis released on Tuesday as part of the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) Causes of Death report.
Dementia has been the leading cause of death for women in Australia since 2016, and in 2024 it overtook cancer and heart disease to become Australia's leading killer nationally.
This is the first time dementia deaths have exceeded 10 per cent, more than double the rates reported in 2006, when dementia was the fourth-leading cause of death nationally.
Dementia Australia's chief executive officer, professor Tanya Buchanan, said the new data reinforced the urgent need to raise awareness of the condition as a leading public health issue affecting Australians.
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"The data underlines the critical need for more recognition and funding to support people living with dementia, their families and carers," Buchanan said in a statement.
"Despite the growing impact of dementia, investment in specific services, supports and prevention has not kept the same pace, and the stigma that surrounds dementia continues. This needs to change."
Buchanan said that with nearly 500,000 Australians living with dementia, without "significant intervention", the figure was expected to increase to more than one million by 2065.
In 2025, women accounted for more than 60 per cent of all deaths attributed to dementia in Australia.
The report found that there were almost twice as many deaths from dementia as from ischaemic heart diseases, which is the second leading cause of death for women.
The ABS said that in 2025, there were just 2,791 deaths separating the top two leading causes of death, with that gap continuing to widen as dementia deaths increase over time, and deaths from ischaemic heart disease continued to decline.
Between 2016 and 2025, the number of deaths due to dementia increased by 37 per cent, while deaths due to ischaemic heart diseases and cerebrovascular diseases decreased by 16.2 per cent and 12.1 per cent, respectively.
The mortality rate for ischaemic heart diseases was the lowest on record since its peak in 1968.
After ischaemic heart diseases and cerebrovascular diseases, lung cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases rounded the top five leading causes of death, which in 2025 represented more than 30 per cent of all registered deaths.
