Public Health: Challenges and Policies in Australia

The Australian public health system faces significant challenges, particularly with regards to obesity and overweight. According to various reports and studies, nearly 7% of the total health burden (DALY) was due to obesity/overweight, with a higher burden in males than females. The government has framed policies to prevent and manage overweight and obesity, including advocating for national priority, framing effective strategies, allocating funds, launching societal marketing initiatives, and collaborating with other organizations.

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In this 21st century, chronic diseases pose the greatest health challenge for the
World countries (Fleming, 2015). The Australian’s Health- Policy Collaboration has
released its Health- Tracker report in 2016 which states that Australia stands much
behind the other comparable countries in managing the risk factors induced chronic
diseases; particularly those are preventable. Obesity or overweight is an important
public-health problem with at-least 2 in 3 Australian adults is considered
obese/overweight (AIHW, 2016a) and it is one of the leading risk factors for illness and
death (AIHW 2016b).
In Australia, the prevalence of obesity or overweight among the non-Indigenous
adult population is noted to be 63.4% as compared with 71.4% in the Indigenous
(Aboriginal & Torres Strait- Islander’s) adult- population. It depicts a wide range of
difference in the obesity or overweight rate between both the population groups with
about 8% higher rate in Indigenous adults who mostly belong to lower socio-economic
status (ABS, 2012).
When compared to other high income countries, Australia is found to have higher
obesity or overweight rates (AHPC, 2016) and among OECD countries, Australia is
noted to rank 30th out of 34 countries, which indicates that Australia lies in the bottom 3rd
performers. AHPC (2016) also suggests that Australian adult population is not tracking-
well to achieve the 2025 target of halting the increased obesity or overweight rate at
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61.1% and they too trend in a wrong direction showing poorer progress against 2025-
target.
A DALY (Disability- Adjusted life year) is nothing but the measure of the disease
burden in terms of the no. of years a person has adjusted/compromised with an illness,
disability and/or early death. It is useful to compare the health as well as life-
expectancy of varied Nations. The DALY burden for a specific condition is calculated by
adding YLL (yrs. of life lost because of premature death) with YLD (yrs. lost with ill-
health) (WHO, 2015, AIHW, 2017).
According to AIHW (2017), nearly 7% of the total health-burden (DALY) was due
to obesity/overweight; among which 63% were fatal burdens and 84% were non-fatal
burdens. DALY was also noted to be higher in males- 7.3% than females- 6.6% in total
burden. The DALY of linked cardio-vascular diseases among Australian adults was
noted to be 80,394 (49.9%) in males, 37,890 (33.6%) in females and 118,284 (37.9%)
in total-adults while DALY in Coronary heart-diseases was found to be 62,220 (35.4%)
in males, 23,103 (16.9%) in females & 85,324 (27.3%) in total-adults whereas
hypertensive heart-diseases was 1,820 (1.0%) in males, 1,456 (1.1%) in females &
3,276 (1.0%) in total-adults which shows that obesity/overweight forms a greatest risk-
factor for cardiovascular diseases.
Australian Government has framed a policy for preventing & managing over-
weight and obesity which functions- to advocate the government to establish obesity &
over-weight as a national priority; to frame effective strategies to tackle this issue and to
allocate funds to develop, implement, evaluate and research about obesity/overweight;
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to launch a novel societal marketing initiative to encourage Australians to follow healthy
life-style; and to collaborate with other organizations to prevent overweight/obesity
(PHAA, 2016).
Reference
AHPC-Australian Health Policy Collaboration. (2016). Australia’s Health Tracker report.
Retrieved from https://www.vu.edu.au/sites/default/files/AHPC/pdfs/australias-
health-tracker.pdf.
ABS- Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2012). Australian Health Survey: First Results,
2011-12 Cat. No. 4364.0.55.001. Retrieved from
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/034947E844F25207CA257AA
30014BDC7?opendocument
AIHW- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2017). Impact of overweight and
obesity as a risk factor for chronic conditions: Australian Burden of Disease
Study. Australian Burden of Disease Study series no.11. Cat. no. BOD 12. BOD.
Canberra: AIHW.
AIHW. (2016a)..Australia’s health 2016. Australia’s health series no. 15. Cat. no. AUS
199. Canberra: AIHW.
AIHW. (2016b). Australian Burden of Disease Study: impact and causes of illness and
deaths in Australia 2011. Australian Burden of Disease Study series no. 3. Cat.
no. BOD 4. Canberra: AIHW.
Fleming, M.L. & Parker, E. (2015). Introduction to Public Health. Retrieved from
https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0729583449
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PHAA- Public Health Association of Australia. (2016). Public Health Association of
Australia: Policy-at-a-glance – Prevention and Management of Overweight and
Obesity in Australia Policy. Retrieved from
https://www.phaa.net.au/documents/item/1701
World Health Organization (WHO). (2015). Metrics: Disability-adjusted life year (DALY).
Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/metrics_daly/en/
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