The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare recently released Australia’s health 2024 – the 19^th biennial report on the health of Australians.

Here are some findings that may interest you…

The FIVE leading causes of death in 2022:

1. Coronary heart disease
2. Dementia
3. COVID-19
4. Cerebrovascular disease
5. Lung cancer.

We have made improvements for some health risk factors, while rates for others have grown:

• A greater proportion of adults are living with overweight or obesity: 55% (1995) to 66% (2022).
• 31% of people aged 14 and over consumed alcohol in ways that put their health at risk in 2022-23 – down from 39% in 2004.*
• Rates of daily tobacco smoking continue to decline (12.2% in 2016 to 8.3% in 2022-23), but the proportion of people aged 14 and over using e-cigarettes daily has risen (0.5% in 2016 to 3.5% in 2022-23).

The FIVE most common long-term health conditions in 2022:

1. Anxiety (4.8 million people, 18.9%)
2. Back problems (4.0 million people, 15.7%)
3. Depression (3.2 million people, 12.4%)
4. Asthma (2.8 million people, 10.8%)
5. Deafness or hearing loss (2.4 million people, 9.6%).

Over ⅓ of disease burden was potentially preventable in 2018 – that is, it could have been prevented had Australians reduced or avoided exposure to certain risk factors.†

The FIVE risk factors that caused the most disease burden in 2018:

1. Tobacco use (8.6% of total burden)
2. Overweight and obesity (8.4%)
3. Dietary risks (5.4%)
4. High blood pressure (5.1%)
5. Alcohol use (4.5%).

* Consuming more than 10 standard drinks per week or more than 4 in a single day is likely to increase the risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury.

† Burden of disease is a way of measuring the impact of diseases and injuries on a population. It combines the years of healthy life lost due to living with ill health (non-fatal burden) with the years of life lost due to dying prematurely (fatal burden).

What do you think about these numbers?

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References

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024) Australia’s health 2024: in brief, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 04 September 2024.
2. Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Health_Illustrated_Text.png