Public Health Report: Analysis of Obesity in Australia and Policies

This report provides a review of the 2016 Australia’s Health Tracker report, focusing on the risk factor of obesity in adults. The report examines the prevalence of obesity, highlighting disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, and discusses the burden of disease, including Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) and Years of Life Lost (YLL) associated with obesity-related chronic diseases. It also outlines government health strategies implemented to address obesity, such as the National Preventative Health Taskforce and weight loss surgery initiatives. The report emphasizes the need for more effective interventions to reduce obesity rates and improve health outcomes in Australia, referencing relevant health statistics and research findings.

Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
PUBLIC HEALTH
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
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Introduction:
The purpose of the assignment is to provide a brief review on the 2016 Australia’s Health
Tracker report presented by the Australian Health Policy Collaboration. In this regards the report
will outline one of the risk factors, prevalence of the risk factor, burden of disease for the
particular health area in Australia and health policies of Australian government for the particular
risk factor. The chosen risk factor for this assignment is adults who are overweight or obese.
Risk factor:
According to the health statistics of WHO, it has been found that Australia has ranked
third in the prevalence of obesity in adults. It has been found that obesity has the highest impact
on people aged between 60-75 years old (who.int, 2018). The Australian government has
targeted to reduce the prevalence to 61.1% within 2025. The report has shown that the trend is in
the wrong direction and progress is poor against the target (Vu.edu.au, 2018). Risk of severe
disease such as cardiovascular attack, diabetes, respiratory disorders and cancer is high for the
obese people (Müller-Riemenschneider et al., 2013). Thus, it is important to provide adequate
focus to the matter to address the risk factor of obesity in Australia to improve the health status.
Prevalence:
The prevalence of obesity is higher in case of Indigenous people as compare to non-
indigenous people. The statistics provided by the 2016 Australia’s Health Tracker report has
shown that the prevalence of obesity in adults is 63.4% for non-indigenous people whereas the
prevalence is higher that is 71.4% for indigenous people (Vu.edu.au, 2018). Research has
indicated lack of adequate information regarding the proper diet, nutrition and health risk as the
main cause of such disparity in the status of health of indigenous and non-indigenous people

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(Anderson et al., 2016). Thus, it is required to introduce effective strategies in order to mitigate
the issue of obesity and reduce the health inequality in the Australian population.
Burden of disease:
Burden of disease in a population can be understand with the help of the metrics known
as Disability-adjusted life year or DALY. One DALY is considered as the one lost year of
healthy life. It is calculated as the sum of Years of life lost (YLL) and Years lost due to disability
(YLD). Increasing obesity has led to the increasing burden of disease. As mentioned before, risk
of chronic disease even death is higher in case of obese people. In Australia it has been found
that due to cardiovascular risk 507231 years of life lost has occurred (Who.int, 2018). Thus, it is
clear that disease burden of chronic disease like cardiovascular risk is high in Australia due to
high obesity rate.
Government health strategies:
In order to reduce the prevalence of obesity in adults the Australian government has
introduced some strategies. For example, the Australian government has introduced National
preventive health task force in order to develop effective strategies to resolve the issue of obesity
and other health issues related to it. The Australian National Preventative Health Agency has
been developed in 2011 to cope up with the health issue. In addition the government of New
South Wales has announced weight loss surgery for morbidly weight patients (health.gov.au,
2018). Such steps are appreciable, however more focus needs to be provided to achieve expected
outcome.

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References:
Anderson, I., Robson, B., Connolly, M., Al-Yaman, F., Bjertness, E., King, A., ... & Pesantes, M.
A. (2016). Indigenous and tribal peoples' health (The Lancet–Lowitja Institute Global
Collaboration): a population study. The Lancet, 388(10040), 131-157.
health.gov.au (2018). Department of Health | Health Systems Policy Division. Retrieved from
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/health-systems-policy-
division
Müller-Riemenschneider, F., Pereira, G., Villanueva, K., Christian, H., Knuiman, M., Giles-
Corti, B., & Bull, F. C. (2013). Neighborhood walkability and cardiometabolic risk
factors in Australian adults: an observational study. BMC public health, 13(1), 755.
Vu.edu.au (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.vu.edu.au/sites/default/files/AHPC/pdfs/australias-health-tracker.pdf
who.int (2018). WHO | Metrics: Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY). Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/metrics_daly/en/
who.int (2018). World Health Statistics 2017: Monitoring health for the SDGs. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2017/en/