Considerable progress has been made in improving health over the past 100 years in Australia, evidenced by substantial decreases in age-standardised mortality rates and increases in life expectancy. The following improvements have contributed to the decline in death rates:
- Improved understanding of environmental factors that affect health and the resulting improvements to public infrastructure (e.g. clean water supply, sewerage, sanitation, housing, and improved food supply).
- Improved understanding of health risk and beneficial factors, and improvement in general education levels within the general population. These improvements have contributed to changes in behaviour within the general community, resulting in reductions in the incidence of some diseases. For example, understanding the association between respiratory diseases (e.g. lung cancer and emphysema) and tobacco smoking has led to anti-smoking campaigns, while understanding exposure to the sun and risk of skin cancer has led to sun-safe campaigns. Also, work safety and road safety campaigns and improvements in transport infrastructure have reduced deaths due to injury.
- Medical and surgical advances (e.g. antibiotics, immunisation, blood pressure lowering drugs, imaging equipment, surgical techniques) and improvements in access to medical and other health services.