The Albanese Government’s comprehensive health reform agenda is enabling Australia to meet key health challenges highlighted in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) Australia’s Health 2024 report.
Australians are living longer and healthier lives. Australia has the fourth highest life expectancy amongst 38 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, even after a slight dip due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Government’s unfolding reform agenda, with a stronger Medicare at its core, is starting to make a difference on the ground in key areas – including primary care, mental health, preventive health, health workforce, and First Nations health.
The report shows COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in Australia in 2022. This is the first time in more than 50 years that an infectious disease has been in the top five causes of death.
Comments attributable to Minister Butler:
“Australia’s Health is one of the AIHW’s flagship reports and it provides an invaluable snapshot into the health and wellbeing of Australians, across every aspect of their lives, their health and – importantly – the health system.
“This Report covers a very unique period in the health of the nation, as Australians and the health system were coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate aftermath, with all of the pressures that came with it: the deferred care, the workforce challenges, and so much more.
“I’d like to thank the AIHW for all of the effort that went into producing Australia’s Health 2024, the insights of which will no doubt inform the efforts of policymakers at every level of all Australian governments, and right throughout the public health sector.”
