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Anxiety Statistics Australia: Prevalence, Disease Burden, and Who Is Most Affected

Last updated: September 2026

All figures on this page are drawn from two publicly available Australian government sources: the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024. Both were fetched directly and re-verified on the date this page was last updated. Sources are linked inline and listed at the end of the page.

1. How common are anxiety disorders in Australia?

According to the ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022 (the most recent nationally representative survey of its kind, covering the reference period December 2020 to October 2022), more than one in six Australians aged 16-85, an estimated 17.2% or 3.4 million people, had a 12-month anxiety disorder. Anxiety is the most common mental disorder group in Australia: the AIHW's own overview of the same data separately states that "17% of Australians experienced an Anxiety disorder", ahead of affective disorders (8%) and substance use disorders (3%).

Across the full population aged 16-85, 42.9% (8.5 million people) are estimated to have experienced a mental disorder at some point in their life; 28.8% (5.7 million people) had experienced an anxiety disorder specifically, the largest of the three broad categories the ABS tracks.

Anxiety disorders by subtype (12-month prevalence, 2020-2022)

The ABS reports the following 12-month prevalence rates for specific anxiety disorder subtypes. These are independent percentages of the population, not a breakdown that sums to the 17.2% total, because a person can meet criteria for more than one subtype:

Source: ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022, "12-month mental disorders by type of disorder" table. These are percentages of the population aged 16-85, not person counts, and not mutually exclusive categories.

2. How does anxiety compare with other health conditions?

Prevalence measures how many people are affected. A separate AIHW measure, total disease burden (measured in DALYs, disability-adjusted life years, which combine years lost to premature death and years lived with illness), shows how much health loss a condition causes across the whole population. The Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024 puts anxiety disorders among the leading causes of ill health in the country, alongside major physical diseases:

Source: AIHW Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024, "leading 5 diseases that caused burden" (national, all ages, all sexes). Ranking is of individual named diseases, not disease groups.

Anxiety disorders carry more of the national health burden among women specifically. The same study finds that among Australian women, dementia is the leading individual cause of total disease burden (5.7%), with anxiety disorders second (4.9%), ahead of back pain & problems (4.5%). For women aged 15 to 44, the study states plainly that "anxiety disorders was the leading specific cause of burden in females", ahead of every other physical or mental health condition in that age group; for men in the same age band, the leading cause was suicide and self-inflicted injuries.

The burden from anxiety has grown since 2003

Looking at change over time, the AIHW study reports that between 2003 and 2024, the age-standardised rate of total disease burden (which adjusts for Australia's ageing population, so the comparison isn't just a function of more older people) increased for anxiety disorders by 34%. That is nearly double the rise recorded for depressive disorders (18%) over the same 21-year period, and larger than the rises for osteoarthritis (26%) or suicide and self-inflicted injuries (19%). By contrast, the burden from coronary heart disease fell 58% and stroke fell 54% over the same period, reflecting major declines in cardiovascular deaths.

3. Who is most affected?

The ABS 2020-2022 survey breaks 12-month anxiety disorder prevalence down by sex, age, sexual orientation, and household type. The pattern is consistent: anxiety is not evenly distributed across the population.

• Sex: women are more likely than men to have a 12-month anxiety disorder: 21.1% compared with 13.3%.
• Age: almost one in three Australians aged 16-24 (31.8%) had a 12-month anxiety disorder.
• Age and sex combined: the sex gap is widest among young adults. Two in five women aged 16-24 (40.4%) had a 12-month anxiety disorder.
• Sexual orientation: among Australians who described their sexual orientation as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or used a different term (i.e. not heterosexual), one in two (50.3%) had a 12-month anxiety disorder, well above the rate for Australians overall (17.2%).
• Household type: one in four people (25.6%) living in one-parent family households with dependent children had a 12-month anxiety disorder.
• By subtype and sex: women reported higher rates than men of social phobia (9.2% vs 5.2%) and PTSD (7.4% vs 3.7%).

Source: ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022, "Prevalence of 12-month mental disorders by age and sex" and related tables. The sexual-orientation figure describes a subgroup defined by self-reported sexual orientation in the ABS survey; it is not a measure of the broader LGBTIQA+ population, which also includes gender identity categories the ABS reports separately.

4. Putting prevalence and disease burden together

Two patterns emerge from the same source data, though they come from different survey systems and shouldn't be read as a single combined statistic. Within the ABS's own age-and-sex breakdown, women aged 16-24 report the highest rate in that table (40.4%), and the gap between women's and men's rates in that band (40.4% vs 24.4%) is wider than the equivalent gap at ages 25-34 (26.3% vs 17.5%). Separately, the AIHW finds that anxiety disorders are the single leading cause of total disease burden among women aged 15-44 (a wider, overlapping age band, measured two to four years apart, using a different methodology). None of these figures should be quoted as evidence for one another, and none should be read against the 50.3% sexual-orientation figure in section 3 above, which is the largest single prevalence figure this page reports and describes a different kind of demographic grouping (sexual orientation, not age-and-sex); each figure here is correct only for its own age band, its own grouping, and its own measure.

5. What this means for people in Sydney seeking a psychologist

If you recognise yourself in any of the patterns above, you are far from alone: anxiety disorders affect more than 3 million Australians in any 12-month period, women are affected at a higher rate than men overall (21.1% vs 13.3%), and the condition's total burden on the Australian population has been rising for two decades. None of this is a diagnosis; only a GP or psychologist can assess your individual situation.

For what a telehealth psychologist costs, how Medicare rebates work, and current workforce and access data, see our companion reference: Medicare-rebated psychology in Australia: what the data shows. If you are looking for a telehealth psychologist in Sydney who specialises in anxiety, the directory includes AHPRA-registered practitioners with information on specialties and session format.

Related guides

• Medicare-rebated psychology in Australia: what the data shows – Medicare utilisation, workforce numbers, and access gaps.
• Does online therapy work for anxiety? – what the clinical evidence says about telehealth effectiveness.
• What does a telehealth psychologist cost in Australia? – fee ranges and Medicare rebate amounts.
• Social anxiety and telehealth psychology in Sydney – the most prevalent anxiety subtype in this data, explained.

Sources

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022. Reference period 2020-2022, released 5 October 2023. abs.gov.au
2. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024, Key findings. Last updated 12 December 2024. aihw.gov.au
3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). Prevalence and impact of mental illness. Last updated 13 August 2026. aihw.gov.au

About this page: this is a data reference resource produced by Sydney Anxiety Psychology, a directory of telehealth psychologists for anxiety in Sydney. It is not clinical advice. If you are in distress, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. This directory is not a crisis service. All figures were sourced directly from the government datasets linked above and verified at the time of writing (September 2026). If you notice an error or an outdated figure, please contact us.