Australia's Health 2016

The AIHW has this week released it's 15th biennial health report - Australia's health 2016. Several feature articles and statistical snapshots cover Australia's health expenditure, the major causes of ill health, health of Indigenous Australians, health system performance and many other current profiles. Overall we are living longer and generally consider ourselves to be healthy.  For each 100 people, 56 rate their health as excellent or very good.  However, 19% of Australians have a disability, 20% a mental health disorder and 50% at least one chronic disease.  For the first time, cancer is the biggest overall killer of Australians and accounts for the biggest burden.

The main publication is accompanied by a summary report, Australia's health 2016-in brief.

Australia's Health 2016 report card: experts respond has been published in The Conversation as a useful commentary from Stephen Duckett (Grattan Institute), Fran Baum (Flinders University) and Rob Moodie (University of Melbourne).