Chapter 2 summary

1. Chapter 2 summary “The health status of Australians”

2. Note taking. • There is no ‘right’ way to take notes form a power point presentation. • Right down info that you find interesting, think is important, or is something that gets talked about a lot! • A good idea would be to right down the answers to any questions that are posed to the class.

3. Overall Australia is a healthy country. • Leading causes of burden are cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression, lung cancer, dementia, diabetes mellitus, asthma & osteoarthritis These are all what types of disease? Write down the definition for this word, and give examples. Why do you think people in Australia die from these diseases? • What are some ways that we could measure health status in Australia? • Why do we use these statistics? • Why do we go to the effort to measure (HALE)? • As life expectancy has increased in Australia, so has our Burden of disease. • Why do you think this is? • Look at Figure 2.4. Try to explain what is happening

4. How will I die? • Look at the table on p31. • Use a grey lead pencil to tick off diseases during each slide, or copy down the diseases which apply to you and tick them as they are repeated. • We are trying to determine which conditions are the most likely to have an impact on your life.

5. Do you smoke? • Tick all in the ‘Tobacco’ column

6. Do you drink more than 3 times per week? OR Do you regularly drink more than 6 drinks in a sitting • Tick all in the ‘Alcohol Misuse’

7. Has anyone in your family died of heart disease? OR • Does anyone in your family suffer from high blood pressure or high cholesterol? • Tick anything that is in either the ‘High Cholesterol’ or ‘High Blood Pressure’ columns.

8. Do you eat take-away or fatty foods more than once a week? • Tick all in the ‘Poor diet’ column.

9. Do you eat vegetables most days? • (minus 9 points)

10. Do you do at least some exercise every or most days? • (minus 9 points)

11. Do you think you are overweight? • Tick all in the ‘Excess weight’ column

12. Add up your points for each disease/condition and you total points. • Which disease(s)/condition(s) are you most at risk of? • How many points do you have overall? • Compare to the people around you.

13. How will I die? Do you smoke? Do you drink more than 3 times per week? OR Do you regularly drink more than 6 drinks in a sitting? Has anyone in your family died of heart disease? OR Does anyone in your family suffer from high blood pressure or high cholesterol? Do you eat take-away or fatty foods more than once a week? Do you eat vegetables most days? Do you do at least some exercise every or most days? Do you think you are overweight?

14. Your task • Complete Activity 2.2

15. How do we compare? • Australia’s life expectancy at birth is one of the worlds highest at 81.4 for combined males & females. • What about the rest? • Look at table 2.3. What do you notice? • Look at table 2.4. Rank Australia out of the 5 countries features for each of the measurements. • Discuss why you think these results may occur.

16. Variations in health Status • Will everyone in Australia die when they are 81? • There are groups within Australia that experience higher rates of certain diseases may be more or less healthy than other groups. • These groups include: • INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS • AUSTRALIANS LIVING IN RURAL AND REMOTE AREAS • LOWER SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS • MALES AND FEMALES

17. Indigenous populations • Life expectancy for Aboriginals & Torres Strait Islanders is approximately 20 yrs. Shorter than for the total population. • Death rates for young people 4 times that of rest of population and 7 times for adults. • Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of ill health among Aboriginal people. • Cancer death rates are higher for Aboriginal people • Look at table 2.5 on p43. What do you notice? • Look at Figures 2.12 and 2.13. What do you notice?

18. Why? • SOCIAL – lower income, higher unemployment, less education, less home ownership. • PHYSICAL ENVIROMNMENT – lack of safe water, sewerage, shelter. Higher disease, abuse. Less access to health care/good food. • BEHAVIOURAL – more alcohol/smoking. Poorer diet. Vastly different diet to pre white settlement. • Biological – higher obesity, low birth weight.

19. What is being done • Australian Government has initiated the Close the Gap campaign to establish indigenous health and wellbeing goals and work towards them. • Includes goals like increasing access to education and education outcomes, as well as employment . • What positive effects could this have?

20. Rural and remote areas • Overall lower health. • 1-2 years lower life expectancy for rural. • 7 years lower for remote. • Higher mortality and incidence of coronary heart disease, lung diseases, car accidents and suicide. • More likely to get both communicable and chronic disease.

21. Why? • SOCIAL ENV. – lower education, income, employment, higher food and petrol cost. • PHYSICAL ENV. Less access to health care, work longer hours. Influenced more by climate and natural disasters. • BEHAVIOURAL – more smoking, more injury rates due to travel and physically demanding and dangerous jobs. • BIOLOGICAL – Slightly more obese.

22. Socio-economic status • Typically – more education = more healthy. • More diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, mental health. • More visits for treatment, but less preventative health. • Lower paid, manual occupations carry more health risks. • Children in single parent or low income households have lower health. Also lower mental health from being excluded from activities.

23. Why? • SOCIAL ENV – lower education often means lower paying job. Lower income means less ability to buy proper food or medical services. Also more time working = less time looking after health. • BEHAVIOURAL – low ses more smoking and alcohol, less active, eat more processed, take away food. • BIOLOGICAL – low ses more likely to be overweight

24. Males vs females • Males – lower life expectancy, higher lung cancer and respiratory diseases, suicide. • Death is much more likely to result from external causes for males – transport accidents, self harm • Females overall have higher rates of cancer. • Why?

25. Why? • BEHAVIOURAL – differing attitudes to health care. Males less likely to go to doctor with problem or get screened for illness. Also greater risk takers physically. Males smoke more and don’t eat as much fruit and vegies. Exercise more though. • BIOLOGICAL – More males obese. • Oestrogen protects against cardiovascular disease, which only helps women.