Australia's Health Scores 10th

With challenges around suicide, alcohol consumption and overweight children, Australia has come in at position 10 in a global study tracking progress on health from the international Global Burden of Disease (GBD) collaboration.

Published today in The Lancet, the report analyses the progress of 188 countries, over a 15-year period, towards achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on health.  Countries were ranked on a scale of zero to 100, with Iceland topping the list at 85, Australia at 81, the United States at 75, and the Central African Republic, one of the 10 poorest countries in the world ranked down at 20.

Timor-Leste, Tajikistan, Colombia, Taiwan and Iceland have made the greatest strides in areas such as expanded health coverage, and malaria and tobacco control, the report said, while Brazil has almost halved deaths of children under five.

Australia scored 63 on overweight, 55 on suicide, 54 on alcohol and 66 on smoking.  

Lead author, Laureate Professor Alan Lopez, the Rowden-White chair of Global Health and Burden of Disease Measurement at the University of Melbourne, said the findings were important for policymakers for allocating domestic health spending, prioritising foreign aid budgets, and benchmarking themselves against other countries.

Click here to access the Lancet report.

Source: Pharmacydaily.com.au, Friday 23 September 2016