Through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), over the 17 days leading up to the Australia’s national election we will be highlighting the challenge for an inclusive and sustainable Australia, what can be done to address the challenge and what BCSD Australia, as part of a global WBCSD network is doing to create impact.
On Day 3, we are looking at SDG3: Good health and well-being
Health is crucial not only for maintaining our way of life but also to the healthy and productive functioning of the Australian economy.
On life expectancy and per capita health care expenditure, the Australian health system rates well on an international comparator, while the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Index notes that on most metrics our overall health outcomes are steady, if not necessarily progressing to better health outcomes, but noting our country still has an obesity problem.
Health reform based on evidence:
Our local health care institutions should be incentivised to focus on working with their communities to change the societal conditions that cause ill health. Australia’s model of health care service must ensure it is more easily adopted to the needs of the patient to deliver more informed and optimised care over a longer period ( particularly for chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia).
Support for people in regional areas must be improved by adjusting national policy settings that affect spending on regional services, such as health, given the life expectancy gap at birth across regions and in indigenous communities. Universal primary dental care should be introduced as it is a obvious gap in in our universal health care system with dental health being linked to overall health.
What is BCSD Australia doing to create impact to address this challenge?
We are working with a number of partner organisations on projects that will help to address this challenge here in Australia and around the world, including:
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