Health promotion and health protection is an Australia's health topic

A fundamental aim of any health system is to prevent disease, intervene early, and reduce ill health so that people remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Health promotion is a broad term that has as its foundation the process of enabling people to have control over and improve their health (WHO 1986). Health promotion activities seek to enhance the social, educational, environmental, political and economic conditions needed to promote health, while recognising the wider determinants of health, for example social, environmental, commercial and systemic (see What are determinants of health?). Achieving equity in health is a key aspect of health promotion, that is, reducing the differences in health status and ensuring equal opportunities and resources to all people to ensure optimal health (WHO 1986).

Health promotion activities such as education, social marketing, legislation and regulation, are an important part of early intervention and disease prevention and can be used to help build social and physical environments that support healthy behaviours.

Health protection refers to a subset of health promotion and is concerned with protecting individuals, groups and populations through preventing and controlling health threats related to infectious diseases, the environment, and other events (The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2025). Health protection examples include the National Immunisation Program (free vaccines), public health screenings and mandatory safety regulations like seatbelts and smoking bans.

Priority populations

Different groups across society experience social inequalities and disadvantage resulting in health inequity – the unfair and avoidable differences in health status (WHO 2018). An important part of health promotion and health protection is to assess the needs of these groups and tailor programs, activities and policies accordingly to address these differences in health risk factors.

The National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030 refers to these groups of people, as ‘priority populations’ which include, but are not limited to:

What is the role of government?

The Australian Government, along with state and territory governments, plays a central role in protecting and improving the health of the population.

All levels of government play an important role in overseeing health promotion and health protection, which can vary depending on the strategy or situation. For example, in health promotion, the Australian Government can impose fiscal measures such as taxes on items like tobacco, e-cigarettes and alcohol to deter people from buying– as part of a broader strategy (see Tobacco and e-cigarette control). Launched in late 2021, the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030, provides the long-term approach to prevention in Australia. States and territories have their own public health legislation, which aim to protect, promote and improve the health and wellbeing of the public in that jurisdiction. State and territory governments are also responsible for delivering preventive health services such as breast cancer screening, school-based immunisation programs and implementing settings-based measures for example, smoke-free laws.

Local governments have responsibility for a range of local public health and environmental issues including community services and waste disposal. Being closely connected to their community, local governments implement policies and programs that serve to improve health and reduce health inequities but may respond differently depending on resources and local needs (Schultz et al. 2023). They are also responsible for planning, building and designing new suburbs in their local area, which can harness urban design principles to promote opportunities for physical and mental wellbeing, such as through the provision of bike paths, or publicly available green space. For more information, see Built environment and health.

Australian Centre for Disease Control

The Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC) was established on 1 January 2026, following the passage of enabling legislation on 6 November 2025 (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025a). Under the Australian Centre for Disease Control Act 2025, health promotion and health protection fall within the CDC’s remit as core public health matters, including the prevention and control of health threats at a population level.

What role do non-government organisations play?

Health promotion activities are also undertaken outside of the government sector. Cancer Council Australia, for example, plays a key role in preventing cancer through their health promotion activities, particularly around sun safety and anti-smoking campaigns. Nutrition Australia is a non-government organisation that promotes healthy eating through their information and education services.

Health promotion practitioners may work on a range of activities including health education, community development and community engagement processes, advocacy and lobbying strategies, and social marketing. The Australian Health Promotion Association is Australia’s professional association specifically for people interested or involved in the practice, policy, research and study of health promotion. 

Current health promotion and health protection activities

There are key health promotion activities undertaken in Australia to address some of the main contributors to disease burden: tobacco smoking and overweight and obesity. Disease burden is the quantified impact of living with and dying prematurely from a disease or injury. For more information, see Burden of disease.

Health promotion and protection activities targeting the reduction of disease burden are at varying stages of development. Notable successes include the reduction in tobacco smoking over recent decades, while a range of strategies and activities are in progress to tackle the increasing rates in overweight and obesity.

Health literacy relates to how people access, understand and use health information in ways that benefit their health. Health literacy is an important factor associated with other determinants of health (see What are determinants of health?) and is key to disease prevention and control, as people with low health literacy are at higher risk of worse health outcomes and poorer health behaviours (AIHW 2024d; Coughlin et al. 2020).

Tobacco and e-cigarette control

Tobacco use remains the leading risk factor contributing to fatal disease burden and deaths in Australia, contributing to 11.6% of all deaths (12.3% for males and 10.8% for females) (AIHW 2024a). Smoking is also a major contributor to health inequalities, with disproportionate harms experienced by some population groups. A study estimating the smoking attributable mortality for First Nations people found that smoking causes half of deaths in older First Nations populations (Thurber et al. 2021). For more information, see First Nations people’s use of alcohol, tobacco, e-cigarettes and other drugs.

The National Preventive Health Strategy (NPHS) 2021–2030 sets out targets to reduce smoking prevalence, including achieving a national daily smoking rate of less than 10% by 2025 and 5% or less by 2030 among adults (aged 18 and over). The NPHS also aims to reduce daily smoking among First Nations people aged 15 and over to 27% or less by 2030. This goal is on track with National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) data showing that daily smoking among First Nations people aged 15 and over declined from 41% in 2012–13 to 37% in 2018–19, and further to 29% in 2022–23 (ABS 2019, 2024).

The tobacco control measures of all Australian governments and public health organisations have been key to Australia’s success in tobacco control. Daily tobacco smoking has been falling since the early 2000’s, decreasing from 19% to 8.3% of people in Australia between 2001 and 2022–23. This long-term decline has largely been driven by people never taking up smoking (up from 49% in 1991 to 65% in 2022–23), alongside increasing rates of quitting among people who have smoked (AIHW 2024b, Greenhalgh et al. 2025). For more information on Australia’s smoking and e-cigarette use rates, see Tobacco and e-cigarettes.

Reducing tobacco and e-cigarette use is a key priority of the Australian Government, supported by substantial investment in recent years. The 2024–25 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook included $194.9 million to implement e-cigarette regulatory reforms aimed at reducing availability. This builds on 2023–24 Federal Budget funding of $737.0 million for measures to protect Australians against the harms of tobacco and e-cigarette products (Department of Health and Aged Care 2023c).

Over recent decades, Australia has progressively implemented a comprehensive suite of tobacco control measures (Figure 1) including:

  • staged increases in tobacco excise
  • smoke-free laws and policies
  • public health campaigns
  • measures to minimise illicit tobacco trade
  • plain packaging of tobacco products
  • graphic health warnings, health promotion inserts, and on-product health messages
  • regulation or banning certain ingredients, flavours and accessories
  • standardisation of tobacco pack and cigarette stick sizes
  • prohibitions on tobacco and e-cigarette advertising, promotion and sponsorship
  • support for people who smoke or use nicotine products to quit (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025c).

Figure 1: Daily smoking, people aged 14 and over and key tobacco control measures in Australia, 1990 to 2024 (per cent)

This figure shows the daily smoking proportion for people aged 14 and over and key national tobacco policy implementation points (such as tobacco tax increases and health campaigns) over time. The green and blue shaded regions represent the respective legislation introduced at different time points across Australian states and territories within that period. The proportion of people who smoke daily declined from 24% in 1991 to 8% in 2022–23.

This figure shows the daily smoking proportion for people aged 14 and over and key national tobacco policy implementation points (such as tobacco tax increases and health campaigns) over time. The green and blue shaded regions represent the respective legislation introduced at different time points across Australian states and territories within that period. The proportion of people who smoke daily declined from 24% in 1991 to 8% in 2022–23.

These measures also form part of Australia’s National Tobacco Strategy 2023–2030, which aligns with NPHS smoking targets and provides a national framework for coordinated action across governments and non-government organisations. Together, these interventions contribute to health protection by reducing population exposure to tobacco-related harms.

Despite Australia’s success in reducing the prevalence of tobacco use, significant challenges remain. Of particular concern is the growing illicit tobacco market. The Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner (ITEC) Report 2024–25 estimates that illicit tobacco accounted for 50–60% of total tobacco consumption in 2024–25, with an estimated market value of $4.1–$6.9 billion, based on modelling using 2022–2023 consumption data (Commonwealth of Australia 2025).

Novel and emerging nicotine products, including e-cigarettes (vapes), present new challenges for preventing and reducing nicotine dependence. Continued and increased investment by the tobacco industry in e-cigarettes and other novel products has contributed to the social normalisation of their use (Mathers et al. 2019), potentially undermining decades of progress in tobacco control (Department of Health and Aged Care 2023a).

The liquids used in e-cigarettes may contain a range of toxic substances, including flavouring chemicals and nicotine, even when labelled ‘nicotine free’. Hazardous substances, including known carcinogens, have been identified in both e-cigarette liquids and the aerosols they produce. Recent Australian research indicates that nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to cause oral and lung cancer (Stewart et al. 2026). Short-term harms include inhalation toxicity (including seizures), nicotine dependence, increased heart rate and blood pressure, e-cigarette associated lung injury, cough, throat irritation and nausea (Banks et al. 2023).

Rates of e-cigarette use have increased rapidly in recent years, particularly among children and young people. Data from the 2022–2023 National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) shows that lifetime use of e-cigarettes among people aged 14 and over more than doubled from 8.8% in 2016 to 19.8% in 2022–2023, with 54% of users reporting that the most recent e-cigarette used contained nicotine. Over the same period, lifetime e-cigarette use among people who had never smoked increased from 4.9% to 16.4% (AIHW 2024b).

Rates of both lifetime and current e-cigarette use are highest among young people. In 2022–23, around 49% of people aged 18–24 had ever used an e-cigarette (up from 26% in 2019), while lifetime use among those aged 14–17 nearly tripled to 28% (up from 9.6% in 2019). Current use followed similar patterns, with 21% of people aged 18–24 reporting current use, compared with 5.3% in 2019 (AIHW 2024c).

For more information on Australia’s smoking and e-cigarette use rates, see Tobacco and e-cigarettes.

In partnership with the states and territories, the Commonwealth Government has introduced stronger legislation, enforcement, and regulatory controls to reduce smoking and vaping. From 1 January 2024, the importation of disposable single use vapes was banned. From 1 March 2024, the following regulations commenced:

  • cessation of the personal importation of vapes 
  • a ban on the importation of non-therapeutic vapes 
  • a requirement for therapeutic vape importers and manufacturers to notify the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of their product’s compliance with the relevant product standards 
  • a requirement for importers to obtain a licence and permit from the Government’s Office of Drug Control before the products are imported (Department of Health and Aged Care 2023b).

Product standards for therapeutic vapes have also been strengthened, including limits on flavours, reduced permissible nicotine concentrations, pharmaceutical-style packaging, and bans on single use disposable vapes. Further information is available via the Vaping hub | Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

The National Lung Cancer Screening Program which commenced on 1 July 2025 is a targeted health protection initiative aimed at reducing illness and death from lung cancer through earlier detection. The program uses low‑dose computed tomography (CT) screening to identify lung cancer at an earlier stage, when treatment options are more effective and survival outcomes are improved. Screening is offered to asymptomatic people aged 50–70 with a current or recent history of heavy tobacco cigarette smoking. Government modelling indicates that the proportion of lung cancers detected at an early stage (Stage 1) could increase from 16% without screening to 60% with the program (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025b). For more information see Cancer screening.

Overweight and obesity

Overweight and obesity continue to present a significant public health challenge in Australia. Excess weight, particularly obesity, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, some musculoskeletal conditions and some cancers (Forouzanfar et al. 2015). The drivers of overweight and obesity are complex and varied, shaped by a wide range of biological, social, environmental and commercial influences on energy balance and body weight, many of which lie outside individual control (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2021). Despite this complexity, people living with overweight or obesity often experience both unconscious and intentional weight stigma in social settings, stemming from perceptions that excess weight is solely a matter of personal responsibility. Such views overlook the structural and systemic nature of overweight and obesity.

In 2022–24, an estimated 67% of adults aged 18 and over, 27% of children and adolescents aged 2 to 17 and 42% of young people aged 18–24 were living with overweight or obesity (ABS 2025). The most recent burden of disease estimates show that in 2024, overweight and obesity was the leading risk factor contributing to non-fatal disease burden in both males and females (8.8% and 7.7%, respectively) (AIHW 2024a).

The National Obesity Strategy 2022–2032 provides a national framework for preventing, reducing and treating overweight and obesity in Australia. The strategy is guided by 3 core ambitions:

  • creating supportive, sustainable and healthy environments
  • empowering people to stay healthy
  • ensuring access to early intervention and care (Commonwealth of Australia 2022). 

The first of these focuses on changing the systems, environments and commercial determinants that affect Australians’ opportunities to live active and healthy lives. Strategies include:

  • creating a healthier, more sustainable food system, including through funding innovation
  • improving physical and local access to healthy food and drinks 
  • making processed food and drinks healthier, including through food reformulation (see Partnership Reformulation Program)
  • improving the nutrition information provided on food products (see Health Star Rating system)
  • reducing exposure to unhealthy food and beverage marketing and sponsorship
  • ensuring public settings model healthy choices, such as schools through the curriculum and wider school environment
  • creating safe community spaces and reducing cost and access barriers to encourage physical activity.

Strategies to empower individuals include communication activities to promote healthy eating and physical activity and supporting local communities and organisations to develop and lead their own healthy eating and physical activity initiatives. 

The National Obesity Strategy 2022–2032 and the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030 share two overarching targets: 

  • To halt the rise and reverse the trend in adult obesity by 2030 – after adjusting for age, the proportion of adults aged 18 and over living with obesity has remained stable at around 31% and 32% between 2017–18 and 2022–24 (ABS 2023a).
  • To reduce overweight and obesity in children and adolescents aged 2–17 years by at least 5 percentage points by 2030 – current estimates indicate little change, from 25% in 2017–18 to 27% in 2022–24 (ABS 2018, 2025; Department of Health 2021, Commonwealth of Australia 2022).

Progress against these targets to date suggests a stable prevalence, highlighting the need for continued monitoring to assess whether Australia is on track to meet these targets by 2030. For more information see the National preventive health monitoring dashboard.

For more information, see Overweight and obesity.

Health promotion and health protection success stories

Australia has a long and well-documented history of effective health promotion. Memorable campaigns such as ‘Slip Slop Slap’, ‘Life. Be in It’ and ‘Every cigarette is doing you damage’ are examples of population-wide approaches to promoting health and preventing illness. These initiatives have often been complemented by health protection measures. For example, compulsory seatbelt use, random breath testing, demerits and fines for mobile phone use while driving and 50 km/h residential street limits have formed part of a comprehensive road safety strategy combining legislation, enforcement and public education. Together, these measures have contributed to a substantial reduction in road deaths from 30 per 100,000 population in 1970 to 4.8 per 100,000 in 2024 (BITRE 2010, 2025).

Australia’s response to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) provides another notable example of effective health promotion. In 2024, the estimated prevalence of HIV in Australia remained low and stable at 0.14% among people aged over 15, a relatively low rate compared to other high-income countries (Kirby Institute 2025). Since the 1980s, national HIV strategies have been grounded in prevention and health promotion principles, including strong partnerships between government and non-government organisations, clinicians, researchers and people living with HIV & other affected communities (Smith et al. 2016). This collaborative approach of using a suite of prevention, testing and treatment tools, has been central to Australia’s sustained success in limiting HIV transmission (Brown et al. 2017). Australia has a strong foundation for pursuing the virtual elimination of HIV in Australia by 2030 (Department of Health and Aged Care 2024). 

Mandatory folic acid fortification of wheat flour for bread making, introduced in Australia in 2009, demonstrates the effectiveness of population-level prevention through regulatory intervention. The initiative aimed to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects, serious congenital conditions affecting the brain and spine. By 2011, rates of neural tube defects had declined by 14.4%, from 10.2 to 8.7 per 10,000 conceptions resulting in a birth (AIHW 2016). The reduction was particularly pronounced among teenagers (55% decrease) and First Nations women (74% decrease). The marked improvement among First Nations babies is especially significant given the limited success of previous strategies (D’Antoine and Bower 2019).

Key data gaps and data improvement activities

Data gaps

  • Limited near to real-time, linked surveillance systems across communicable disease notifications, primary care, hospitals, and pathology data. This limits our ability to detect emerging health threats and allocate resources efficiently in response to changing population needs.
  • Fragmented environmental health monitoring, resulting in an incomplete picture of environmental exposures, changing risks, and related health impacts in the population and on the health system.
  • Inconsistent and infrequent monitoring of key behavioural risk factors such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep, alcohol use and smoking. Data on emerging risk factors such as ultra‑processed food consumption, digital screen time, and vaping‑related harms is also limited. Current population monitoring relies heavily on national surveys, such as the National Health Survey and National Drug Strategy Household Survey, which are infrequently run, and face the challenges of increasing costs, declining response rates, and relatively small sample sizes. 
  • Fragmented national data relating to priority populations, which impacts our understanding of health equity.
  • Poor visibility of prevention and health promotion activities, including digital health promotion, which are often state or local government based or delivered non‑government organisations is a challenge to identifying drivers of change, where occurring, and potential disparities in access or uptake.

Data improvement activities

  • Establishment of the Australian CDC’s flagship data reform initiative, the Public Health Data Network, which will provide a coordinated national framework to integrate data from across the country and deliver evidence‑based advice on health threats such as communicable diseases and environmental or climate‑related risks.
  • Increasing access to linked, person‑centred administrative datasets such as the National Health Data Hub. This asset will provide greater insight into risk factors, health outcomes, and the impact of health promotion and protection activities.
  • New and expanded national data collections such as the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR), which expanded to include all adult vaccinations provided under the National Immunisation Program in 2021, and the national lung cancer screening program, which was established in July 2025. These collections provide valuable information on uptake of preventive services, emerging risks, and population groups requiring additional support to access prevention services.
  • Growing digitisation of health monitoring, such as the use of wearable devices to track physical activity and sleep, has the potential to offer new opportunities for collection of timely, granular risk factor data. Key challenges in this space include variable data quality, completeness and usability. Accessing digitised health data for research, evaluation and policy analysis remains slow and complex with data being held by private companies, in many cases. 

Where do I go for more information?

For more information on health promotion, see: