NACCHO Aboriginal health : #AIHW #AustraliasHealth2016 : What are the health experts saying about the report ?

aus-2016

” The report has also pointed out ongoing areas of health inequality in Australia, driven by socioeconomic factors and social determinants.

Communities suffering socioeconomic disadvantage continued to have systematically poorer health including lower life expectancy, higher rates of chronic disease and higher smoking rates.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples recorded improved health indicators in some areas, including lower rates for smoking and infant mortality.

However, the report found life expectancy was shorter by 10 years than for non-Indigenous Australians, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continued to suffer higher rates of diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease and end-stage kidney disease.

The impact of risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and harmful alcohol use have been emphasised as significant contributors to Australia’s rising rates of chronic disease.

This is an opportunity for health leaders and the Commonwealth Government to heed the report’s message that lifestyle factors and social determinants are significant contributors to ill-health, and to address the issues of health inequality and the importance of reform across all of our care systems “

AHHA Chief Executive Alison Verhoeven

Download the report here australias-health-2016

 #AIHW and Minister Sussan Ley press releases from launch #AustraliasHealth2016 report

Life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remains about one decade

The life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remains about one decade, according to new statistics.

The latest report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) said that while health outcomes had improved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, they still remain below those of non-Indigenous Australians.

The biennial report, published today, shows Indigenous males born between 2010 and 2012 have a life expectancy of 69.1 years, a decade less than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

The gap for women was slightly lower at 9.5 years.

Between 2009 and 2013, 81 per cent of all Indigenous deaths were of people under 75. This is more than twice the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, which stands at 34 per cent.

The latest statistics come 10 years after the establishment of the Closing the Gap campaign, which aims to end the disparity on life expectancies.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pledged that the Government would better engage with Indigenous people in “hope and optimism rather than entrenched despair”.

Indigenous sobriety rate higher than non-Indigenous Australians

While smoking rates have been falling nationally, they remain high among Indigenous Australians, with 44 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 and over describing themselves as a current smoker.

The report states that 42 per cent smoke daily, 2.6 times the rate of their non-Indigenous counterparts.

However, Indigenous Australians drink less alcohol than non-Indigenous counterparts — 26 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 and over had not consumed alcohol in past 12 months.

This equates to a sobriety rate 1.6 times that of non-Indigenous Australians.

Potentially avoidable deaths — categorised as deaths that could have been avoided given timely and effective health care — accounted for 61 per cent of deaths of Indigenous Australians aged up to 74 years between 2009 to 2013.

This was 10 per cent more than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Australians are living longer than ever but with higher rates of chronic disease, the latest national report card shows.

Reports below from the Conversation

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Australia’s Health 2016 report, released today, Australian boys can now expect to live into their 80s (80.3), while the life expectancy for girls has reached the mid-80s (84.4).

A boy born and girl born in 1890 could only expect to live to 47.2 and 50.8 years respectively. AIHW

The single leading cause of death in Australia is coronary heart disease, followed by:

Grouped together, cancer has overtaken cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke) as Australia’s biggest killer. Cancer is also the largest cause of illness, followed by cardiovascular disease:

Burden of disease, by disease group, Australia, 2011 AIHW

Chronic diseases are becoming more common, due to population growth and ageing. Half of Australians (more than 11 million) have at least one chronic disease. One quarter have two or more.

The most common combination of chronic diseases is arthritis with cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke):

AIHW

Australians have high rates of the biomedical risk factors that increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Almost a quarter (23%) of Australian adults have high blood pressure and 63% have abnormal levels of cholesterol.


Lifestyle choices

Fron Jackson-Webb, Health + Medicine Editor, The Conversation

The good news is Australians are less likely to smoke and drink at risky levels than in the past.

Australia now has the fourth-lowest smoking rate among 34 OECD countries, at 13% in 2013. This is almost half that of 1991 (24%).

AIHW

The volume of alcohol Australians consume fell from 10.8 litres per person in 2007–08 to 9.7 litres in 2013–14. This is the lowest level since 1962–63. But 16% of Australians are still drinking to very risky levels: consuming 11 or more standard drinks on one occasion in the past 12 months.

AIHW

Around eight million Australians have tried illicit drugs in their lifetime, including 2.9 million in the last 12 months. The most commonly used illicit drugs are cannabis (10%), ecstasy (2.5%), methamphetamine (2.1%) and cocaine (2.1%).

Use of methamphetamine has remained stable in recent years. However, more methamphetamine users are opting for crystal (ice) rather than powder (speed).

The bad news is Australians are still struggling with their weight. Around 63% are overweight or obese, up from 56% in 1995. This equates to an average increase of 4.4kg for men and women. One in four children are overweight or obese.

Junk foods high in salt, fat and sugar account for around 35% of adults’ energy intake and around 39% of the energy intake for children and young people.

Most Australians (93%) don’t consume the recommended five serves of vegetables a day and only half eat the recommended two serves of fruit. Just 3% of children eat enough vegetables, though 70% consume the recommended amount of fruit.

Almost half (45%) of adults aged 18 to 64 and 23% of children aren’t meeting the national physical activity recommendations. These are for adults to accumulative 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity each week. Children are advised to accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.

Lifestyle choices have a huge impact on the risk of chronic disease; an estimated 31% of the burden of disease in Australia could have been prevented by reducing risk factors such as smoking, excess weight, risky drinking, physical inactivity and high blood pressure.

Proportion of the burden attributable to the top five risk factors

AIHW

Preventing chronic disease

Rob Moodie, Professor of Public Health, University of Melbourne

This report outlines a number of positives in Australia’s health – our life expectancy, the health services at our beck and call, major declines in tobacco and road deaths. We’re doing well, it says, but we could do better.

If we took prevention and health promotion far more seriously, we could do a lot better.

The report nominates tobacco use, alcohol, high body mass and physical inactivity as the chief causes of preventable illness and the chief causes of our increasing level of chronic illnesses. Yet national investment in prevention is declining.


Further reading: Focus on prevention to control the growing health budget


Tobacco use is rapidly declining because of really effective measures (plain packaging, advertising bans and increasing price through taxes) that save lives and enormous amounts of money over a lifetime for people who used to smoke.

However, we can’t seem to make any major dent in the commercial, industrial and lifestyle diseases related to junk food and drinks, harmful consumption of alcohol and car dependency.

We’ve known what will work for many years but the power of some of these unhealthy industries is still overwhelming – a situation in which our politicians fear these industries and their associations more than they fear the voters.

Our collective health would have been much better if we’d been able to follow the guidance of our own national task forces and learnt from other countries. The report card should read, “Doing well, but could have done a lot better”.


Inequities

Fran Baum, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor and Foundation Director at the Southgate Institute for Health, Society & Equity, Flinders University

Australia’s Health 2016 shows many Australians are not getting a fair go at health. There is a gradient across society whereby the richer the area you live in, the longer you can expect to live. The difference between the highest and lowest is four years.

Deaths by socioeconomic group: 1 = lowest; 5 = highest

AIHW

The gradient is evident from early life. Children most at risk of exclusion – those from poor areas who experience problems with education, housing and connectedness – are most likely to die before they reach 15 years from potentially preventable or treatable causes.


Further reading: Want to improve the nation’s health? Start by reducing inequalities and improving living conditions


Our most glaring inequity is the ten-year life gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and others. Indigenous life expectancy is 69.1 years for males and 73.7 years for females.

Compared with the non-Indigenous population, Indigenous Australians are:

  • 3.5 times as likely to have diabetes and four times as likely to be hospitalised with it or to die from it
  • five times as likely to have end-stage kidney disease
  • twice as likely to die from an injury
  • twice as likely to have heart disease.

Australians living outside major cities have higher rates of disease and injury. They also live in environments that make healthy lifestyles choices harder (such as more difficulties buying fresh fruit and vegetables) and so their risk of chronic diseases is increased.

AIHW

The data on who has private health insurance coverage points to the emergence of a two-tiered health system, where those who can afford to pay receive better access and quality of care. Just 26% of those in the lowest socioeconomic group have cover compared to about 80% of the top group.

Coverage with private health insurance and government health-care cards

AIHW

Cost of care

Professor Stephen Duckett, Director of the Health Program at Grattan Institute

Over the last decade, health expenditure grew about 5% each year, above the 2.8% average growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As a result, health took up an increasing share of GDP.

Spending more on health means Australia spent less on other things. This is not necessarily bad, as long as the benefits from that increased expenditure – such as increasing life expectancy or increased quality of life – are worth the increased costs.

But spending above GDP growth cannot continue indefinitely. And the last few years saw an increase in rhetoric about health spending increases being “unsustainable” from so-called “futurists” and politicians.

Informed commentators have generally rejected the unsustainability claim, some labelling it a “myth”, while others take a more nuanced view.

Australia’s Health 2016 shows a slowing of the real growth rate in the most recent two years to about half that of the previous decade – 1.1% from 2011-12 to 2012-13 and 3.1% from 2012–13 to 2013–14.

Annual growth rates in health expenditure AIHW

This suggests the “unsustainability” rhetoric is at least overblown and potentially prompting budget decisions which are counter-productive, such as introducing a co-payment for general practice.

Commonwealth government expenditure was more or less stable over these most recent two years, declining 2.5% initially then increasing 2.4% in the last year.

Health expenditure by area (adjusted for inflation)

AIHW

Savings to the government came from shifting costs to consumers, by slowing the growth in government subsidies to private health insurers, and also by slowing spending on pharmaceuticals.

This latter slowdown was achieved through tighter controls on payments to drug manufacturers and because some big-selling drugs came off patent, resulting in falls in prices.

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NACCHO Aboriginal Health Alert : #AIHW and Minister Sussan Ley launch #AustraliasHealth2016 report

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 ” A new snapshot of Australia’s health has found we are living longer than ever before, but the rise of chronic disease still presents challenges in achieving equal health outcomes for Indigenous Australians and people living outside metropolitan areas.

Minister for Health Sussan Ley pictured above with Dr Mukesh Haikerwal

Download the Report Here

australias-health-2016

As well as looking at factors influencing individuals’ health, today’s report also examines the health of particular population groups, and shows considerable disparities.

‘For example, while there have been some improvements overall in the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians—including falls in smoking rates and infant mortality—Indigenous Australians continue to have a lower life expectancy than non-Indigenous.

Indigenous Australians, at 69.1 years for males and 73.7 for females, more than 10 years shorter than for non-Indigenous Australians,’

Indigenous Australians also continue to have higher rates of many diseases, such as diabetes, end-stage kidney disease and coronary heart disease.”

AIHW Director and CEO Barry Sandison

                     AIHW website Australia’s Health 2016

aus-2016

The Minister today launched the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) publication Australia’s health 2016, which provides an update on the health of Australians and the performance of Australia’s health system.

“Australia’s health 2016 shows us that about 85 per cent of Australians rate their health as good, very good or excellent, which is a testament to the significant investment of the Turnbull Government into the health of our nation, with about one-quarter of total government revenue attributed to health spending,” Minister Ley said.

“Our Government’s priority is to ensure the high performance and sustainability of our health system over the long term. This is why the Turnbull Government is working closely with stakeholders to progress a range of health system reforms.”

Total Commonwealth investment in health will grow to more than $71 billion in 2015-16 and this will increase to $79 billion within four years. The Turnbull Government’s investment in Medicare is at $23 billion per year and this will increase by $4 billion over the next four years.

“The report indicates that health outcomes for Australians have improved over time with life expectancy at an all-time high of 80.3 years for males, while a baby girl could expect to live for 84.4 years. Survival rates for cancer are also improving,” Minister Ley said

Minister Ley said that despite plenty of good news on health in the report, managing chronic conditions and their impact on Australia’s health system remained one of our greatest health challenges.

“The report shows that half of Australians have a chronic disease – such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes or a mental health disorder – and one-in four have two or more of these conditions,” Minister Ley said.

“This is why our initial investment of almost $120 million in the Health Care Homes initiative is so important. It will help to keep those with chronic conditions healthier and out of hospital. It will give GPs the flexibility and tools they need to design individual care plans for patients with chronic conditions and coordinate care services to support them.

“We recently announced the 10 geographic regions that will deliver Stage One of this important initiative from 1 July next year, and we hope the results will lead more broadly to a better, consumer-focused approach to health care.”

Australia’s health 2016 is available on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s website.

85 out of 100 Australians say they’re healthy—but are we really? AIHW Press Release

Most Australians consider themselves to be in good health, according to the latest two-yearly report card from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

The report, Australia’s health 2016 is a key information resource, and was launched today byfederal Health Minister, the Hon. Sussan Ley.

AIHW Director and CEO Barry Sandison said the report provided new insights and new ways of understanding the health of Australians.

‘The report shows that Australia has much to be proud of in terms of health,’ he said.

‘We are living longer than ever before, death rates continue to fall, and most of us consider ourselves to be in good health.’

If Australia had a population of just 100 people, 56 would rate their health as ‘excellent’, or ‘very good’ and 29 as ‘good’.

‘However, 19 of us would have a disability, 20 a mental health disorder in the last 12 months, and 50 at least one chronic disease.’

Mr Sandison said the influence of lifestyle factors on a person’s health was a recurring theme of the report. ‘13 out of 100 of us smoke daily, 18 drink alcohol at risky levels, and 95 do not eat the recommended servings of fruit and vegetables.

‘And while 55 do enough physical activity, 63 of us are overweight or obese.’

Mr Sandison said that while lifestyle choices were a major contributor to the development of many chronic diseases, other factors such as our income, education and whether we had a job—known as ‘social determinants’—all affected our health, for better or worse.

‘As a general rule, every step up the socioeconomic ladder is accompanied by an increase in health.

‘Compared with people living in the highest socioeconomic areas, people living in the lowest socioeconomic areas generally live about 3 years less, are 1.6 times as likely to have more than one chronic health condition, and are 3 times as likely to smoke daily.’

As well as looking at factors influencing individuals’ health, today’s report also examines the health of particular population groups, and shows considerable disparities.

‘For example, while there have been some improvements overall in the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians—including falls in smoking rates and infant mortality—Indigenous Australians continue to have a lower life expectancy than non-

Indigenous Australians, at 69.1 years for males and 73.7 for females, more than 10 years shorter than for non-Indigenous Australians,’ Mr Sandison said.

Indigenous Australians also continue to have higher rates of many diseases, such as diabetes, end-stage kidney disease and coronary heart disease.

For people living in rural and remote areas, where accessing services can be more difficult, lower life expectancy and higher rates of disease and injury—particularly road accidents— are of concern.

In Australia, health services are delivered by a mix of public and private providers that includes more than 1,300 hospitals and about 385,000 nurses, midwives and medical practitioners.

Of the $155 billion spent on health in 2013–14, $145 billion was recurrent expenditure. Hospitals accounted for 40% of recurrent expenditure ($59 billion), primary health care 38% ($55 billion), with the remaining 22% spent on other health goods and services.

For the first time, the report examines how spending by age for people admitted to hospital has changed over time.

Mr Sandison said the analysis showed that the largest increase in spending between 2004–05 and 2012–13 was for Australians aged 50 and over.

‘This was due to more being spent per person in the population as well as the increased number of people in these age groups.’

Mr Sandison also said that while Australia’s health 2016 provides an excellent overview of Australia’s health at a point in time, there is still scope to expand on the analysis.

New to this edition is information on the changing nature of services provided by publicand private hospitals over the last 10 years; information about how geography affects

Indigenous women’s access to maternal health services; and about the increasing role ofinstitutions such as hospitals and residential aged care in end-of-life care.

‘Good data is essential to inform debate and policy and service delivery decision-making— and improving its quality and availability is at the core of the AIHW’s work.

‘We’re committed to providing meaningful, comprehensive information about Australia’s health and wellbeing—to help create a healthier Australia.’

  • Preliminary material
    • Title and verso pages
    • Contents
    • Preface
    • Acknowledgments
    • Terminology
  • Body section
    • Chapter 1 An overview of Australia’s health
      • Introduction
      • What is health?
      • Australians: who we are
      • How healthy are Australians?
    • Chapter 2 Australia’s health system
      • Introduction
      • How does Australia’s health system work?
      • How much does Australia spend on health care?
      • Who is in the health workforce?
    • Chapter 3 Leading causes of ill health
      • Introduction
      • Burden of disease and injury in Australia
      • Premature mortality
      • Chronic disease and comorbidities
      • Cancer
      • Coronary heart disease
      • Stroke
      • Diabetes
      • Kidney disease
      • Arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions
      • Chronic respiratory conditions
      • Mental health
      • Dementia
      • Injury
      • Oral health
      • Vision and hearing disorders
      • Incontinence
      • Vaccine preventable disease
    • Chapter 4 Determinants of health
      • Introduction
      • Social determinants of health
      • Social determinants of Indigenous health
      • Biomedical risk factors
      • Overweight and obesity
      • Illicit drug use
      • Alcohol risk and harm
      • Tobacco smoking
      • Health behaviours and biomedical risks of Indigenous Australians
    • Chapter 5 Health of population groups
      • Introduction
      • Health across socioeconomic groups
      • Trends and patterns in maternal and perinatal
      • health
      • How healthy are Australia’s children?
      • Health of young Australians
      • Mental health of Australia’s young people and adolescents
      • Health of the very old
      • How healthy are Indigenous Australians?
      • Main contributors to the Indigenous life expectancy gap
      • Health of Australians with disability
      • Health of prisoners in Australia
      • Rural and remote health
    • Chapter 6 Preventing and treating ill health
      • Introduction
      • Prevention and health promotion
      • Cancer screening
      • Primary health care
      • Medicines in the health system
      • Using data to improve the quality of Indigenous health care
      • Indigenous Australians’ access to health services
      • Spatial variation in Indigenous women’s access to maternal health services
      • Overview of hospitals
      • Changes in the provision of hospital care
      • Elective surgery
      • Emergency department care
      • Radiotherapy
      • Organ and tissue donation
      • Safety and quality in Australian hospitals
      • Specialised alcohol and other drug treatment services
      • Mental health services
      • Health care use by older Australians
      • End-of-life care
    • Chapter 7 Indicators of Australia’s health
      • Introduction
      • Indicators of Australia’s health
  • End matter
    • Methods and conventions
    • Symbols
    • Acronyms and abbreviations
    • Glossary
    • Index