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What is a National Health Priority Area?
National Health Priority Areas (NHPAs) are diseases and conditions chosen for focused attention at a national level because of their significant contribution to the burden of illness and injury in the Australian community.
The eight NHPAs identified for particular attention are:
- Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions
- Asthma
- Cancer control
- Cardiovascular health
- Diabetes mellitus
- Injury prevention and control
- Mental health
- Obesity.
What is the National Health Priority Areas initiative?
The NHPA initiative, established in 1996, is a program emphasising collaborative action between Commonwealth and State and Territory government, non-government organisations, health experts, clinicians and consumers, for specific diseases and conditions. The initiative recognises that the strategies for reducing the burden of illness should be pluralistic, encompassing the continuum of care from prevention through to treatment, management and maintenance, and based on appropriate research and data sources. The initiative is overseen by the National Health Priority Action Council (NHPAC).
By targeting specific areas that impose high social and financial costs on Australian society, collaborative action can achieve significant and cost-effective advances in improving the health status of Australians. The diseases and conditions targeted under the NHPA initiative were chosen because through appropriate and focused attention significant gains in the health of Australias population can be achieved.
What is the National Chronic Disease Strategy?
In November 2005 the Australian Health Ministers' Conference (AHMC) [external link] endorsed the National Chronic Disease Strategy (NCDS) [external link] to provide an overarching framework of national direction for improving chronic disease prevention and care across Australia.
It is a nationally agreed agenda to encourage coordinated action in response to the growing impact of chronic disease on the health of Australians and our health care system.
How do the National Health Priority Areas fit with the National Chronic Disease Strategy?
They are still priorities, but they sit under the overarching framework of the National Chronic Disease Strategy.
What is the government doing to improve Australia's health?
The Commonwealth and the States have agreed to a Health Prevention National Partnership, with the Commonwealth providing funding of $448.1 million over four years, and $872.1 million over six years starting from 2009-10 to improve the health of all Australians. This funding could support the following elements:
- increased access to services for children to increase physical activity and improved nutrition;
- provision of incentives for workplaces and local communities to provide physical activity and other risk modification and healthy living programs;
- increased public awareness of the risks associated with lifestyle behaviour and its links to chronic disease;
- a national social marketing campaign; and
- enabling infrastructure, including a national preventative health agency, surveillance program, workforce audit, eating disorders collaboration, partnerships with industry and a preventative health research fund, leading to better oversight and research into prevention, leading to improved outcomes.
This funding will lead to reductions in the proportion of people who smoke, are at unhealthy bodyweight, and/or do not meet national guidelines for physical activity and healthy eating.
Specifically, governments commit to:
- increase the proportion of adults and children with healthy body weight, reduce rates of obesity and avert new cases of diabetes in adults each year;
- increase the proportion of children and adults meeting national guidelines for physical activity and healthy eating; and
- reduce the proportion of adults smoking daily, averting premature deaths and ameliorating costs.
What is the government doing to improve the health of Indigenous Australians?
The Commonwealth and the States have agreed to an Indigenous Health National Partnership (IHNP)worth $1.6 billion over four years, with the Commonwealth contributing $806 million and the States $772 million. This proposal will contribute to addressing the COAG-agreed closing the gap targets for Indigenous Australians, closing the life expectancy gap within a generation and halving the mortality gap for children under five within a decade. The proposal includes expanded primary health care and targeted prevention activities to reduce the burden of chronic disease.
This national partnership is a down payment on the significant investment needed by both levels of government to close the unacceptable gap in health and other outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
The IHNP will lead to:
- reduced smoking rate among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
- reduced burden of diseases for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities;
- increased uptake of Medicare Benefits Schedule-funded primary care services to Indigenous people with half of the adult population (15-65 years) receiving two adult health checks over the next four years;
- significantly improved coordination of care across the care continuum; and
- over time, a reduction in the average length of hospital stay and reduction in readmissions.
This means that over a five-year period, around 55 per cent of the adult Indigenous population (around 155,000 people) will receive a health check with about 600,000 chronic disease services delivered. More than 90,000 Indigenous people with a chronic disease will be provided with a self-management program, while around 74,500 Indigenous people will receive financial assistance to improve access to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines.