Report: Australia’s Health 2016

Source: AIHW

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s 15th biennial health report is now available.

It profiles current health issues in a collection of feature articles and statistical snapshots that cover a range of areas, including:

• The health status of Australians
• Health expenditure
• The major causes of ill health
• Determinants of health
• Health through the life course
• Health of Indigenous Australians
• Preventing and treating ill health
• Health system performance

Read Australia’s Health 2016

Report: Australia’s health 2014

Source: Australian Institute of Health & Welfare

Australia’s health 2014 is the 14th biennial health report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This edition combines analytical feature articles on highly topical health issues with short statistical snapshots in the following areas: Understanding health and illness; The Australian health system; How healthy are we?; Leading types of ill health; Health behaviours and risks; Health through your life; Indigenous health; Preventing and treating ill health; Indicators of Australia’s health.

Read the Report.

Website: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander health literature search tool (PubMed)

The Lowitja Institute has funded the development of a new search filter, Llt.search, that locates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health literature on PubMed.

You can customise and refine your search with Llt.search using one of the 27 search topics provided across health services and systems, health status, health conditions and risk factors.

From the Llt.search website:

• It is an ‘evidence based’ search
• It was developed with experts in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health including health providers, researchers and academics
• It can assist both experienced and inexperienced searchers
• It maximises relevant results and minimises irrelevant items
• It saves time by providing a pre-written search
• It increases the likelihood of retrieving quality retrievals
• It is always up-to-date as it provides real time searches in PubMed.

Use the Llt.search search tool.

Journal Club: Health of young Indigenous Australians – systematic review

Indigenous young people’s health is a critical target for health system reform, but the evidence base to inform health policy has been poorly described. This study shows that, despite improvements over time, important gaps remain in the evidence base. 

This review of original peer-reviewed research from 1 Jan 1994 – 1 Jan 2011 identified 360 studies, of which 250 were graded good quality. Most health-outcome data focused on communicable diseases, oral health and substance use. There were also some good-quality data for health-risk exposures for adult non-communicable diseases (such as substance use, physical activity and diet) and for adolescent pregnancy, including perinatal outcomes.

Data for urban locations were limited, as were data for mental disorders and injury. Overall, there was also a shortage of evaluation of programs and interventions.

The quality of health research for young Indigenous Australians: systematic review

Peter S Azzopardi, Elissa C Kennedy, George C Patton, Robert Power, Robert D Roseby, Susan M Sawyer and Alex D Brown
Med J Aust 2013; 199 (1): 57-63. (full text free onsite)

Website: Australian Indigenous ClinicalInfoNet

Funded by the Australian Department of Health & Ageing and launched this week, Australian Indigenous ClinicalInfoNet is a new online resource designed to:

…promote best practice in the prevention, identification and management of chronic disease in Indigenous Australians.

It covers the key chronic diseases contributing to the burden of disease in Indigenous people:

•   cardiovascular disease
•   diabetes
•   chronic respiratory disease
•   kidney disease
•   cancer

The web resource provides access to:

•   patient education materials
•   clinical guidelines and reference materials
•   clinical tools
•   systems and services information.

These resources cover the areas of:

•  prevention
•  diagnosis
•  treatment
•  drug therapy

Go to the Australian Indigenous ClinicalInfoNet website.

Report: National Report Card on Mental Health & Suicide Prevention

The independent National Mental Health Commission has just released its inaugural annual report card A Contributing Life: the 2012 National Report Card on Mental Health & Suicide Prevention, considered a world first of its kind.

From the media release:
Australia leads the world in progressive mental health policy, but it falls down in delivery. The report card paints a big reform picture, makes 10 specific recommendations, and calls for change in a range of areas where the Commission believes action can and must start now. For example: 

• reducing the early death of Australians with severe mental illness and improving their physical health.
• minimising the use of seclusion and restraint.
• increasing access to mental health services from 6-8 to 12% of Australia’s population.
• making the mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a higher priority.
• stopping people from being discharged from mental health services into homelessness or unstable homes.
• increasing the employment rates of people with mental illness and paying greater attention to supporting them at work.
• increasing access to home based visiting to support families and children.
• providing effective, local interventions to prevent suicide.

A series of short videos that tell the stories of real people has been created to highlight the main themes of the report and can be viewed here.

Read the full media release.