Improving Cardiovascular Health in Australian Adults: A Policy Brief

Running head: HEALTHCARE
Healthcare
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The following policy brief aims towards improving the cardiovascular (CVD) health
status of the Australian Adults with the special focus to the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait
Islanders. CVD is a non-communicable disease common in 4.2 million Australian adults
during 2014-15. The rate of occurrence is double among the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait
Islanders population. The main risks factors behind the disease development are modifiable
risk factors like unhealthy lifestyle habits. The Australian policy for the CVD control include
increasing the primary care services and educating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islandersabout improvement of the health lifestyle habits. However, improvement in policy
planning will be focused towards the budget differentiation in equal areas along with proper
smoking and alcohol prevention policies.

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According to the World Health Organisation (2006), the knowledge base of the
healthcare workers must be improved rapidly such that the policy decisions taking place at
the local or at the international levels can be designed as per the evidence-based practice and
responsive towards increasing the requirement for the healthcare workers and the overall
challenges for meeting this health needs. For the information of the health workforce system
for the designing of the policy, the information in the domain of the health-related gap must
be aligned with particular country. The following policy brief is set over the healthcare
context of Australia and will mainly highlight the cardiovascular diseases. Cardiovascular
disease (CVD) is an umbrella term that used to describe the heart and blood vessels disease.
The term commonly encompass diseases like the heart failure, coronary heart disease,
cardiomyopathy, peripheral vascular disease, congenital heart disease and stroke. The
majority of the conditions are life threatening.
Context and importance of the problem
According to the reports published by Kreatsoulas and Anand (2010), cardiovascular
disease resultsin more than one thirds of the death in the developed countries. It is also
regarded as one of the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in developing nations as well,
accounting to nearly 25% of the total death. Under the Australian context, it can be stated that
the cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the main cause of death in Australia creating a
high level of disease burden. During 2014-15, at least 4.2 million Australian adults reported
to have been diagnosed with CVD and this include 1.2 million of population have
encountered stroke and 2.6 million population reported for having hypertension. As per the
Aboriginal Statistics, at least 69,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander have CVD during
2014-15 that this equals to 15.7% of the Aboriginal population. The rate is thrice as higher in
comparison to the non-indigenous population (Australian Government Department of Health,

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2016).Apart from the high rate of occurrence among the indigenous population, the
Australian who resides in the remote areas have 30% higher death rates in comparison to the
major cities. People who belong to the poor socio-economic groups are also associated also
suffers higher rate of occurrence of CVD in comparison to the people who resides in the
higher socio-economic groups in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
[AIHW], 2018). Higher rate of hospitalizations due to CVD mainly arise from stroke,
coronary heart disease and heart failure. On the basis of the gender related disease
occurrence, it can be said that men are the prime victims of the disease in comparison to
women across all the age group.
(Source: AIHW, 2019)
However, AIHW (2018) reports that the occurrence of the disease has decreased since
2008 to 2013, however, the there is a high level of disparity between the rate of occurrence
depending on the parameters like gender, socio-economic status and ethnicity.