Chronic Conditions in Australia

Student’s Name
Affiliate Institution
Date

Chronic Conditions in Australia
Also known as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), chronic conditions refer to medical illnesses
that are not transmittable from one person to another. These diseases can progress slowly and last
for a long period. These conditions include cancer, autoimmune diseases, stroke,and heart
disease as well as diabetes, just to mention a few (Hunter and Reddy, 2013).Australia is
considered one of the most developed countries in the world and therefore like many other
developed nations, it has a major problem with chronic illnesses. The most common chronic
disease among Australians is hypertension (high blood pressure).Hyperlipidemia (high
cholesterol), osteoarthritis, asthma, anxiety,and depression are also very common. An estimated
50.8 % of the Australian population has at least a single chronic condition. 17.4% of the
population have hypertension, 12.7% hyperlipidemia, depression (10.5%), osteoarthritis (11.1%),
and asthma (8.0%) (Harrison et al., 2013).
Biomedical risk factors are human conditions that pose specific and direct risks to health, for
example, hypertension. They are habitually influenced by health behaviors such as physical
activity and diet. Conversely, they can additionally be influenced by socioeconomic, genetic as
well as psychological aspects. Altering biomedical risk factors can diminish a person’s
possibility of developing a chronic condition.Certain chronic conditions influence the occurrence
of further illnesses, for instance, a larger percentage of people with cardiovascular disease have
abnormal blood lipids which can result in hyperlipidemia. That is, 78 percent compared with 63
% of adults in Australia with abnormal amounts of lipids in their blood but do not suffer from
heart disease. Other risk factors of chronic conditions relate to the behavior and the environment
of the individual (WHO, 2016). In addition, there are non-modifiable risk factors (person’s

psychological and physical aspects) as well as the social and economic determinants of health
which include education, income, cultures and beliefs of the individual (AIHW, 2012).
The chronic diseases affect older people more than younger individuals as 84 percent of the
burden of disease resulting from obesity and overweight is among persons aged between 45 and
84. The risk factors of these conditions are often overweight, obesity, lack of physical exercises
and other activities such as smoking and excessing alcohol consumption. 7 percent of the total
disease burden in Australia is due to overweight and obesity. 53 % of diabetes cases results from
these factors as well (AIHW, 2014). In addition, people in lower socioeconomic regions suffer
from chronic diseases more than their rich counterparts indicated by a 1.5 times differential in
the burden of disease. 1.7 times the rate of disease burden is experienced by people in very
remote regions in comparison with those in the major metropolitan areas of the country. Another
social group that is adversely affected by chronic conditions in Australia are the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people. These are Australia’s first peoples, also known as the indigenous
Australians who have undergone extreme adversities since the colonization of the nation by
European settlers. These hardships affect their health in addition to declining its abundance.
These indigenous Australians experience the burden of disease 2.3 times more as compared to
non-indigenous people (AIHW, 2014).
In 1999, Australia established an Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) to improve the coordination of
care among people with complex care requirements as well as those with chronic conditions. The
aim of this scheme was to provide a multidisciplinary approach to caring for individuals with
chronic conditions and to health care in general. It worked along other associations such as the
Practice Incentive Program (PIP) and Service Incentive Payments (SIP) to provide financial
incentives to General Practitioners (GPs) to promote coordination of health care services. There