Australia is one of the healthiest nations in the world, taking
great strides in many health areas-but there are groups whose
health still lags behind, according to the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare's latest national report card on health.
AIHW Director Dr Penny Allbon said that Australia's status 'at
or near the top of world health had been achieved efficiently, with
per-person health spending being in the middle of the health
spending tables for developed nations'.
The report, Australia's health 2008, launched today by
Health Minister Nicola Roxon at the 'Australia's health 2008'
conference in Canberra, shows falling death rates for cancer, heart
disease, strokes, and injury.
The report also shows that Australians enjoy one of the highest
life expectancies in the world-an average of 81.4 years, second
only to Japan.
Australian men reaching the age of 65 can now expect to live to
about 83 years, and women to 86 years-about 6 years more than their
counterparts a century ago.
This is partly due to declines in Australia's smoking rates,
which are now among the lowest in the world. In 2007, about one in
six Australian adults were daily smokers.
Australia is also a leader in vaccinating children, and in
vaccinating older people against influenza. Over 90% of children
are fully vaccinated against major preventable childhood diseases
at 2 years of age.
Most migrants enjoy health that is as good as, or better than,
that of the Australian-born population-often with lower rates of
death, hospitalisation, disability and disease risk factors.
Indigenous people, on the other hand, die at much younger ages,
and have a greater disease burden, more disability and a lower
quality of life than other Australians. Despite improvements in
Indigenous death rates, the overall gap between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous rates appears to be widening. However, the gap in
death rates between Indigenous infants and other Australian infants
is narrowing.
In general, people living in rural and remote areas also tend to
have shorter lives and higher levels of illness and disease risk
factors than people in major cities. These findings are influenced,
but not fully explained, by the relatively high proportion of
Indigenous Australians in remote and very remote areas.
Disadvantaged Australians, wherever they live, are more likely
to have shorter lives, higher levels of disease risk factors and
lower use of preventive health services.
Dr Allbon said it was clear from the report that there was great
scope for health improvements through tackling the so-called
'lifestyle' health risk factors.
'In rank order, the greatest improvements can be achieved
through reductions in tobacco smoking, high blood pressure,
overweight/obesity, physical inactivity, high blood cholesterol and
excessive alcohol consumption.'
'The prevalence of diabetes, which is strongly related to these
risk factors, has doubled in the past two decades', Dr Allbon
said.
'Of similar concern is that 7.4 million adults were overweight
in 2004-05, with over 30% of those being obese. And close to 3 in
10 children and young people are overweight or obese.'
'Excessive alcohol consumption not only brings costs in terms of
personal health, but tangible social costs in terms of lost
productivity, health care costs, road accident costs and
crime-related costs that have been estimated at $10.8 billion in
2004-05.'
Australia's Health 2008 selected highlights (by chapter)
- One in five Australians (4 million people) live with some
degree of disability (Chapter 2, page 36).
- Cardiovascular diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases
remain the leading causes of death overall. However, injury is by
far the most common cause of death in the first half of life
(Chapter 2, pages 43-44).
- Prison inmates tend to have poor mental health and high levels
of health risk behaviours, such as drug and alcohol use, smoking,
and unsafe sexual practices (Chapter 3, page 87).
- Most Australians have access to good-quality drinking water,
although some remote Indigenous communities have no organised water
supply (Chapter 4, page 120).
- Unsafe sexual practices continue, reflected in generally
increasing rates of sexually transmitted infections (Chapter 4,
page 150).
- Asthma has become less common among children and young adults
(Chapter 5, page 206).
- In 2004-05, 1 in 10 young Australians had a long-term mental or
behavioural problem (Chapter 6, page 281).
- About 85% of Australians visit a doctor at least once a year
(Chapter 7, page 315).
- GPs are doing increasing work on conditions such as diabetes,
hypertension and oesophageal disease, and less on upper respiratory
tract infections and asthma (Chapter 7, page 322).
- In 2005-06 over 9% of hospital separations were considered
potentially preventable and rates for these separations were higher
for people living in more remote or disadvantaged areas. (Chapter
7, page 304).
- Comparing 2005 with 1997, the overall supply of primary care
doctors (mostly general practitioners) was about 9% lower in
2005-but in remote areas the supply was 15% higher. (Chapter 8,
pages 394, 444).
- Australia spent one in every 11 dollars on health in 2005-06,
equalling $86.9 billion or 9.0% of gross domestic product (GDP).
(Chapter 8, page 396).
- Health spending per person was 45% more in 2005-06 than a
decade before, even after adjusting for inflation. (Chapter 8, page
394, 405).
- As a share of GDP, Australia spent more in 2005 than the UK
(8.3%), a similar amount to Italy (8.9%) and much less than the USA
(15.3%) (Chapter 8, page 402).
Tuesday 24 June 2008
Further information: Dr Paul Magnus, AIHW
Medical Adviser, mob. 0407 915 851, and Dr Penny Allbon, AIHW
Director, mob. 0418 454 924.
For media interviews: Nigel Harding, mob. 0409
307 671, or Belinda Hellyer, mob. 0401 658 465.
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, AIHW, tel. 61 2 6244 1032.
Availability: Check the AIHW Publications
Catalogue for availability of Australia's health
2008.