Summary
Every two years the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare releases a wide-ranging report card on the nation’s health. This booklet provides highlights from the latest such report, Australia’s health 2010, and shows the story that they tell.
As a short version, this booklet has to be very selective. It cannot cover all the important aspects of health. But it does aim to present some key points from the main report and to show the great scope for prevention and other advances. The booklet makes some extra points as well, drawn from the Institute’s data sources or its other reports.
We hope readers will consult Australia’s health 2010 or contact the Institute to explore topics in greater depth.
We're a healthy nation (1.1MB PDF)
- Traffic deaths down
- Fatal injuries still falling
- Infectious disease deaths plummeted
- Breathing easier
- Less emphysema with less smoking
- Cancer deaths down too
- Heart, stroke deaths down
- Australia compares well
- Longer and longer lives
- Outliving most of the world
But not healthy in every way (374KB PDF)
- Ranking the burdens
- Diabetes on the march
- Is Type 1 diabetes increasing?
- Is severe kidney disease increasing?
- Heavier and heavier
- Dementia set to grow
- Burden on young minds
- Chlamydia rates rising
And certainly not everyone is healthy (862KB PDF)
- Death by disadvantage?
- High Indigenous death rates
- Indigenous diabetes prominent
- Indigenous injuries high
- High Indigenous distress
- Disadvantage takes its toll
- Disadvantage is risky
But there's much scope to do better (660KB PDF)
- Risky effects
- Tobacco, marijuana use down
- But alcohol flat
- Eating our fruit and vegies?
We're spending more and doing more (1.0MB PDF)
- An average spender
- Where the dollars go
- More for prevention?
- More for Indigenous health?
- Hospitals increasingly busy
- Restoring the flow
- Joint replacements up
- Special Indigenous services grow
- GPs preventing more?
Some successes and changes are apparent (634KB PDF)
- Surviving heart attacks better
- Cancer survival improving
- Cancer survival: examples
- Realising our potential?
But important challenges remain (627KB PDF)
- Not preventing hospitalisations?
- Waiting longer for surgery
- A few more challenges