Australian National Health Priorities and Social Determinants: A Study

This report examines Australia's National Health Priority Areas (NHPA), with a specific focus on cardiovascular disease (CVD). It highlights that CVD is a significant health concern, contributing to high mortality rates and affecting a substantial portion of the Australian population. The report explores the various programs implemented by NHPA to address CVD, including Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefit Schemes, and the role of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Furthermore, the report emphasizes the influence of social determinants of health, such as income, education, and living conditions, on health outcomes. It points out that individuals in remote areas and those with lower socioeconomic status are at a higher risk of experiencing severe health issues, particularly CVD. The report concludes by advocating for interventions that improve social determinants to enhance the health of all Australians, especially those in vulnerable populations.

Running head: NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
NATIONAL HEALTH PRIORITY AREAS AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF
AUSTRALIA
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

1NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Introduction
The aim of the paper is to examine the Australian’s national health priority with focusing
on the heart disease. Which says that people of Australia are facing 9 different health disease that
has overburden the whole community. Further the paper has highlighted the social determinant
of health of Australian people and reflect that people from remote areas are more likely to get
severe health issues.
Australia’s National health priorities
There are many illnesses in the society and community that lead to overburdening them.
National Health Priority Areas are the responsible body to take initiative to focus on public issue
and health policy. It the collaborative association that tends to include commonwealth and state
and territory government. There are total 9 National Health Priority Areas in Australia, each of
them are the reason for the high death rate in Australian (Tolhurst 2015). Those areas are injury
prevention, asthma, heart disease, arthritis and musculoskeletal condition, mental health,
dementia, diabetes mellitus, obesity and cancer. The major focus of this paper is on
cardiovascular diseases.
National Health Priority Areas- Cardiovascular disease.
Background
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the issue that effect the heart and circulation system. It
leads to other health issue like high blood pressure, heart attack, heart failure, coronary arrest and
peripheral vascular disease. It has been reported in year 2006-2007 that out of six persons one
person is facing problem of heart disease in Australia (Harrison et al 2013). In the year 2017, the
mortality rate due to cardiovascular disease is 33.3% (Lam et al 2015). In looking into the recent

2NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
statistic of death rate due to heart disease it is attributed that, total of 18590 Australian have died
in 2017. 15% of Australian people died every next day from heart problem in 2017, which can be
related as every 28 minute, people dies due to heart illness (Bener et al 2013). Major problem of
CVD occurs in aboriginal peoples and Torres strait islander who live in remote areas. This is the
major reason to include this disease in National Health Priority Areas.
Major cause of the disease
Australian people take high fat and high sodium diet that has increased the risk for CVD
in them. It has estimated that over 400,000 people are affected with heart issue and encounter
heart attack (Dumbrell and Steele 2013). Other reason for the concern are low exercise, different
lifestyle and work environment majorly they have sedentary job, stress and genetic cause.
Health management by NHPA
NHPA implemented various program that focus on reducing the rate of heart disease in
Australia. Such programs and scheme are as follows
 Medicare Benefit Schedule, gives supports to patients by providing subsidies on
treatment of chronic disease.
 Pharmaceuticals Benefit Scheme- They provide subsidies on medicine for CVD.
 National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is the funding body that invest
on diagnosis and treatment of CVD, through investigation of their cause and effect, in
addition to give care to person undergoing CVD (Woodruffe et al 2015).

3NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Social determinant influences within Australia’s healthcare
Crucial determinant of health is the key factor that influence the ability to stay healthy.
There are three major determinant of health which include social, biomedical and behavioral
factor (Baum et al 2013). The focus of this article is social determinants.
Social determinants are the factor that strengthen the health of person and their society.
Like people from the remote areas of Australia have low social and economic standard of living
due to which they face many health issues and are greater risk of CVD. Major social health
determinants are income of people, education, working condition of environment and social
support by the community. These factors have potent effect on the health. The National Health
Performance Framework of Australia has identified the essentiality of social determinant to get
good health. Difference in the living condition of the people depict that higher the social
environment of the person, healthier they are, however, people who have low standard of living
are more prone to the diseases and illness. 20 % of people of Australia who stay in low social
area had 1.6 time more chronic disease than people living in healthier condition (Mitrou et al
2014). It is also estimated from the study of 2009-2010, that Australian living in low areas live 3
years less than other people. People with no job were 1.6 times more likely to employ cannabis
(Baker et al 2018). From the evidence gathered, it is said that people living in remote areas are
more prone to get CVD and other issue.
Conclusion
Lastly, from the above discussion it can be said that, National Health Priority Areas of
Australia is working to improve the health condition of the people by identifying major 9
diseases that has increased the death rate in Australia. Social health of people of low living

4NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
condition can be improved by implementing education, giving jobs to people and focusing to
improve their living condition.

5NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Reference
Baker, P., Friel, S., Kay, A., Baum, F., Strazdins, L. and Mackean, T., 2018. What enables and
constrains the inclusion of the social determinants of health inequities in government policy
agendas? A narrative review. International journal of health policy and management, 7(2),
p.101.
Baum, F.E., Laris, P., Fisher, M., Newman, L. and MacDougall, C., 2013. “Never mind the
logic, give me the numbers”: Former Australian health ministers' perspectives on the social
determinants of health. Social Science & Medicine, 87, pp.138-146.
Bener, A., Zirie, M.A., Kim, E.J., Al Buz, R., Zaza, M., Al-Nufal, M., Basha, B., Hillhouse,
E.W. and Riboli, E., 2013. Measuring Burden of Diseases in a Rapidly Developing Economy:
State of Qatar: National Burden of Diseases in Qatar. Global journal of health science, 5(2),
p.134.
Dumbrell, D. and Steele, R., 2013, January. Twitter and health in the Australian context: What
types of information are health-related organizations tweeting? In 2013 46th Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 2666-2675). IEEE.
Harrison, C., Britt, H., Miller, G. and Henderson, J., 2013. Prevalence of chronic conditions in
Australia. PloS one, 8(7), p. e67494.
Lam, J., Lord, S.J., Hunter, K.E., Simes, R.J., Vu, T. and Askie, L.M., 2015. Australian clinical
trial activity and burden of disease: an analysis of registered trials in National Health Priority
Areas. Medical Journal of Australia, 203(2), pp.97-101.

6NHPA AND SOCIAL DETERMINANT OF HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Mitrou, F., Cooke, M., Lawrence, D., Povah, D., Mobilia, E., Guimond, E. and Zubrick, S.R.,
2014. Gaps in Indigenous disadvantage not closing: a census cohort study of social determinants
of health in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand from 1981–2006. BMC Public Health, 14(1),
p.201.
Tolhurst, P., 2015. Development of Australian chronic disease targets and indicators. Australian
Health Policy Collaboration Papers, p.ii.
Woodruffe, S., Neubeck, L., Clark, R.A., Gray, K., Ferry, C., Finan, J., Sanderson, S. and Briffa,
T.G., 2015. Australian Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Association (ACRA) core
components of cardiovascular disease secondary prevention and cardiac rehabilitation
2014. Heart, Lung and Circulation, 24(5), pp.430-441.