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Colloquium: Peak Health - Why we will never be as healthy again as now

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Today's date is Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Say ‘peak health’ and you might think “top physical fitness” and indeed several organisations have chosen this positive connotation to market their services. But apply the analogy of peak oil to the health system and the inference is that population health will deteriorate from now on. Past PM Rudd acknowledged that health services had reached tipping point based upon Treasury’s estimate that health and aged care costs are projected to rise from $84 billion in 2003 to a $246 billion in 2033. But these figures are underestimates for the following reasons to which many more could be added: • It is predicted that the health gains of the past will be undone by the increasing rates of childhood obesity that will lead to skyrocketing medical costs in the future. Such a trend change is based upon the knowledge that being overweight or obese in childhood or adolescence increases the risk of coronary heart disease as well as many other chronic diseases and cancer. • the fact that the current ‘alpha’ generation will have higher rates of morbidity and premature mortality than their parents will bring a disproportionate burden on the survivors i.e. intergenerational inequity. • Compounding this is the predicted increase in depression that not only increases suicide risk (the commonest cause of death in 15-35 year old group both sexes) but also is associated with a range of coexistent unhealthy behaviours such as smoking and other risk behaviours that also tend not to be built into forward cost projection equations. • The health care system is heavily dependent on fossil fuels to run its infrastructure. With most experts agreeing that we are either at or close to the point of Peak Oil, health care costs in energy intensive hospital systems are likely to rise rapidly. • There are direct and indirect effects of climate change on health that, on top of the above, could be the final straw. Unless there are revolutionary new and challenging approaches, the health of populations will deteriorate.

There is growing recognition that public health, sustainability and climate change are so inextricably linked that they need to be considered as one overarching system that can catalyze action and policy change, . For example the UK Government’s Foresight Project on Obesity argued that ‘the complexity and interrelationships of the obesity system ... make a compelling case for the futility of isolated initiatives’ and concluded that there is considerable scope to align policies to tackle climate change and sustainability with policies for public health. Likewise, the recent UK Marmot review emphasizes that tackling social inequalities in health and tackling climate change - must go together.
Speaker(s) Bret Hart, W.A. Department of Health
Location Myers Street Lecture Theatre, Myers Street Building
Contact W/Professor Stephan Lewandowsky <[email protected]> : 6488 3231
Start Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:00
End Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:30
Submitted by Dianne Bettis <[email protected]>
Last Updated Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:52
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