The National Preventative Health Strategy

The Minister for Health announced in June 2019 that the Australian Government would develop a National Preventive Health Strategy (the Strategy). The Strategy forms part of the third pillar for mental health and preventive health as outlined in Australia’s Long Term National Health Plan.

The Strategy will be a 10-year plan and will build on other strategic work that has already been developed, or is currently being drafted. The Strategy aims to help Australians improve their health at all stages of life, through early intervention, better information, and targeting risk factors and the broader causes of health and wellbeing ...

The Minister for Health announced in June 2019 that the Australian Government would develop a National Preventive Health Strategy (the Strategy). The Strategy forms part of the third pillar for mental health and preventive health as outlined in Australia’s Long Term National Health Plan.

The Strategy will be a 10-year plan and will build on other strategic work that has already been developed, or is currently being drafted. The Strategy aims to help Australians improve their health at all stages of life, through early intervention, better information, and targeting risk factors and the broader causes of health and wellbeing.

A Consultation Paper has been developed which outlines the key themes from consultations held to date, as well as what the Strategy will aim to achieve and how this might be done.

Feedback received on the Consultation Paper will be used to inform the development of the Strategy. The Consultation Paper is now available and you can make your submission in response using our handy form on this page!

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To the National Preventive Health Taskforce,

I write to ask the National Preventive Health Taskforce to recognise the immediate threat that climate change poses to Australians' health in the National Preventive Health Strategy, currently in development. I am pleased to see the inclusion of climate change, compared to the first draft which did not refer to climate change.

However the main pathway to tackling it appears to be via a proposed national environmental health strategy, which is to be developed by 2030. This is far too long to wait to act on what is a current, escalating threat of human health and wellbeing, which risks massive ecosystem and societal collapse in the latter part of this century.[1]

To improve the strategy, I recommend the Taskforce consider the following changes:

- Focus strongly on climate change. Strategies to prevent morbidity and mortality from climate change-related health risks must be included in the Strategy, and there must be funded programs and initiatives to reduce risks and prevent harm.

- Include climate change as an 'Immediate Priority'. While the current listed priorities are worthy, absent climate action, none of these actions will be able to prevent declining health outcomes, increasing mortality and morbidity, and unprecedented human suffering.

- Include the mental health risks associated with climate change. Despite the increasing evidence of mental health burden associated with climate change, there is no mention of this, and no policies or programs proposed to address it.

- Include a mechanism by which to evaluate or monitor climate-related health risks. There is no mechanism proposed for monitoring health outcomes affected by climate change in the strategy, and no targets, baseline figures, or datasets proposed to begin to track health risks from climate change or evaluate the effectiveness of any preventive health measures applied to reduce risks.

- Speed up the timeline for action. A national strategic plan addressing the ‘impacts of environmental health’ by 2030 is simply inadequate. While the announcement of this plan in the Strategy is very welcome, there simply must be a more urgent timeframe to its delivery before 2030.

The profound nature and scale of the impacts from climate change mean that climate action is the best opportunity we have this decade to promote human health and well-being.

As someone who cares deeply about the health and wellbeing of the community, I urge the Taskforce to ensure the National Preventive Health Strategy focuses on tackling the most significant risk to positive health and wellbeing - climate change.

References:
[1] Weyhenmeyer & Steffen, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/06/a-warning-on-climate-and-the-risk-of-societal-collapse

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