Victorian Public Health and Well Being Plan 2015-2019

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Introduction and summary of the health plan:
The report will discuss about the Victorian public health and well being plan 2015-
2019. The report will start with a description on the overview of the plan, the key targets of
the plan and the methods by which it will improve the health of specific Victorians like the
indigenous people (Victoria State Government 2018). The next section will provide details
regarding the priority areas of ‘Tobacco free living’ and the at risk group of older indigenous
people who might be experience poor health outcomes because of tobacco smoking. Three
social determinants of health namely poor socioeconomic status, environmental tobacco
exposure and genetic factors will then be critically and discussed in relation to the priority
area of ‘tobacco free living’.
Description of the plan and the determinants of health:
The main aim of Victorian public health and well being plan 2015-2019 is to achieve
the vision of a Victoria that is free from the burden of preventable disease and injury. The
plan aims to ensure that all Victorians achieve the highest standards of health and well being
at all age. To achieve the above mentioned vision, the plan focuses on the key priority areas
of active living and healthy eating, tobacco free living, decrease harmful drug and alcohol
consumption, promoting mental health, preventing violence and injury and improving sexual
and reproductive health. The target group that is of focus for the Victorian health plan
includes the group with least resources called the Aboriginal Victorians (Victoria State
Government 2018).
The health plan aims to promote health and well being for Aboriginal Victorians
throughout the life course by addressing social determinants of health and risk and protective
factors needed for health and well being. The determinants of health includes socioeconomic,
physical environmental factors and individual behaviours and characteristics of people that
combine together to affect the health of community. This implies that type of lifestyle,
housing, income and education level, social relationship, environments and genetics
significantly influence health and access to health care services (World Health Organization
2019). Hence, the plan also acknowledge that evaluating data related to health status and
health determinants of Victorians can help to achieve the key objectives of the plan. As the
plan identified Victorian Aboriginals to be suffering from health equities, it aims to improve
health status of this group by focusing on inequalities and the determinants that contribute to

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health inequalities and using whole of system approach to promote health and well being for
the group (Victoria State Government 2018). Newman et al. (2015) justifies that social
determinants of health inequities consists of three layers of influence such as socioeconomic
context, daily living condition and individual factors. These three factors interact with each
other to create inequities. Hence, the Victoria’s health plan focus on addressing determinants
of health that lead to health inequity is significant. The effectiveness of this plan will be
evaluated by the decrease in disparities related to health outcome and health access for
Aboriginal Victorians and assessment of improvement in health status after the delivery of
key strategies.
Description of one priority area and one at risk group:
The priority area of ‘Tobacco free living’ will be discussed in this section with a focus
on at risk group of adults aboriginal Victorians. This priority area focuses on developing a
Victoria which is tobacco free. Although the smoking rate is declining, however the aim of
this priority area is to further reduce smoking rate, implement smoking cessation support at
the community level, target smoking cessation measures for Aboriginal Victorians and
implement legislative measures to curb tobacco reform (Victoria State Government 2018).
The main rationale for choosing ‘tobacco free living’ as a priority includes disproportionate
improvement in smoking rate in Victoria because of high smoking rate among Aboriginal
people compared to non indigenous Victorians. The survey by Department of Health (2013)
has revealed that Aboriginal people with low income or unemployment, low level of
education and thus experiencing psychological distress are mostly involved in smoking on a
daily basis. As smoking contributes to 8.5% of Australia’s burden of disease and 41% of
aboriginal people smoke daily, this priority is considered relevant to promote health equity in
relation to smoking and reduce the risk of other disease associated with smoking such
cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer and respiratory disease like COPD.
Most recent statistics also show that rate of current smokers among indigenous
Australian was 45% in 2014 to 2015 and those living in remote areas are more likely to
smoke compared to those living in other areas (pmc.gov.au 2015). Evidence suggests that
smoking is the leading cause of premature disease and mortality among indigenous
Australians. Although the rate of smoking is declining, however compared to non indigenous
Australians, the rate of smoking is still three times higher for indigenous Australians
(Chamberlain et al. 2017). Hence, the strategy of legislation based reform and tobacco control