Cancer Council NSW tips for a healthier Christmas

While many of us are happy to indulge over Christmas, the extra girth gained seems less appealing once the New Year rolls around.

Weight gain over the festive season is a major contributor to excess yearly weight gain, especially for people who are already carrying more weight than they would like.

But rather than fearing the fare on offer, a few simple considerations when preparing food for Christmas can keep it fun and fulfilling, and healthy too

The Cancer Council suggest these tips to help keep the extra kilos at bay which not only includes increasing fruit and vegetable but has cancer prevention benefits too.

                                                                Source: pixabay

Contemplating the last Christmas together

Most Australians are looking forward to Christmas, to catching up with family, sharing a meal and family memories, and then relaxing over summer. However, around 200,000 Australian families will be affected by death and dying this Christmas.Yet many of us are unable to talk about what is happening and may avoid the topic of dying, which can leave families feeling isolated and unsupported.

Read more here on CareSearch to discover suggestions that have been made to help people facing bereavement at Christmas.

                                                                                                   Source: Caresearch

Guidelines for Guidelines

The NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council) recently launched 'Guidelines for Guidelines, providing guideline developers with practical advice on how to meet the 2016 NHMRC Guideline Standards.

It is an online resource comprised of a collection of peer reviewed modules that form a handbook that covers every aspect of the planning, development, review, implementation and updating of guidelines.

Public feedback is encouraged at consultations.nhmrc.gov.au.

Read more about the Guidelines here.

                                                                                              image credit: NHMRC

BHI Healthcare Quarterly

BHI (Bureau of Health Information) has released its latest Healthcare Quarterly report, for July to September 2018, featuring measures of activity and performance in public hospitals and ambulance services in NSW.

Presentations to emergency departments were down 3.2% on the same quarter in 2017 and overall, timeliness of care in NSW emergency departments improved when compared with the same period last year.

Read the full report here or watch the video from the BHI website:

Australia’s international health performance is in the spotlight

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has built a tool that can be used to compare Australian data on health and healthcare with comparable international data.

International health data comparisons 2018, gives a new way of comparing Australia’s performance on variety of health-related measures using the data from 36 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries.

The tool delivers users with interactive data visualisations to create a comparison of key health indicators including life expectancy, health risk influences and causes of death. It also gives an understanding of how Australia’s healthcare system lines up, including data on our pharmaceutical market, health insurance coverage, and elective surgery waiting times.

The data shows that Australia performs well across most of the indicators.

To read more and gain access to the new data tool go to the AIHW website.

Great books about living with mental illness

Books that contain characters we relate to can provide a way to transcribe the messiness in our minds and understand other people's emotions.

Mental illness can sometimes make it challenging to find the concentration required to read, but these nine books are worth the effort, as recommended by SANE Australia.

Check out the books here. 

                                                      Source: SANE Australia

Looking for research information on the treatment of chronic respiratory conditions in Australia? This report might help.

Utilising PBS and MBS data to report on the treatment and management of chronic respiratory conditions 2016–17.

The above report investigates the use of the Pharmaceuticals Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) claims data to respond to vital research questions for reporting on the treatment and management of chronic respiratory conditions in Australia. Including high level analysis on medications dispensed for the treatment and management of chronic respiratory conditions in 2016–17, as well as dispensing patterns.


To download the report and read more go to the AIHW website