This week, we bring news from the #MEDINFO23 conference, and put a focus on women’s rights in global health, as well as moves to expand access to medical terminations in Australia.
The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) has issued a formal statement of support for the Voice to Parliament, and we bring other updates from the referendum campaign trail, as well as some more NAIDOC Week 2023 photos.
One contributor asks whether we really have a ‘cost of living’ crisis, or whether we should be using another conceptual framework that acknowledges structural inequities.
Scroll to the end for details of a stack of interesting events that are coming up soon.
The quotable?
A healthier population is also a more economically productive and happier population, yet another reason every government policy should include a health impact analysis.”
Designing for health
Promoting health and preventing illness should be at the centre of spatial planning, and planning policies are critical to consider as part of a country’s public health agenda, according to this recent article in the BMJ, ‘Ignoring the role of town planning in health perpetuates inequalities’.
While the article focused on the UK context, its key points are pertinent for other countries in Australia.
It says that as well as enabling affordable, good quality housing, local planning policies should ensure access to safe, open, green, social spaces that encourage community inclusion, alongside easy access to a wide range of healthy food and leisure activities.
“Ignoring the role of planning in preventing ill health comes at a considerable cost to our economy, through lost economic productivity and increased demand on the NHS and social care. Yet the most devastating outcome would be to miss an opportunity to close the deeply harmful gaps in health equity, which continue to compromise people’s lives and cut them short,” it says.
The author notes “staggering differences” in outcomes between people living in the UK’s most and least deprived areas. A woman born in Wokingham, for example, can expect to live 15 more healthy years than a woman born in Blackpool. A man born in Richmond upon Thames, meanwhile, can expect to live 17 more healthy years than if he’d been born in Belfast.
Read the article: Health Care Isn’t the Key to a Healthy Population
Poverty, housing, and the availability of green spaces all impact a population’s well-being. Governments need to start acting like it. Professor Christina Pagel from University College London writes: “The government could prioritise quality housing, green spaces, and socioeconomic support. It could also address lack of work or insecure employment, indoor and outdoor pollution, and crime, all of which have considerable impacts on health. We need to realise that almost all governmental policies have an effect on public health and think more holistically about our longer-term health priorities. A healthier population is also a more economically productive and happier population, yet another reason every government policy should include a health impact analysis.”
Read about moves on auto-obesity in Paris.
Read the article: Turning the housing crisis around: how a circular economy can give us affordable, sustainable homes
The authors conclude: “Circular economy housing is a social project as much as a regulatory reform. Success depends on buy-in to the whole process across all levels of government, civil society, private sector and education and training institutions.
Simply relying on market demand to drive the supply of circular goods and services neglects the nature of current supply chains and the weakness of consumer voices. In particular, the one in three households that are tenants have little say in how sustainable their housing is. Stronger partnerships between governments, private developers and local communities are needed to deliver the scale of change required.
The housing industry can step up, with the support of policy incentives, to embrace leading circular economy practice. Housing has a big role to play in the economy-wide changes needed to achieve sustainable use of materials and net-zero emissions.”
Global health
Read the report on global organisations and women’s rights 
Read: Minimum Unit Pricing for Alcohol: Lessons from Scotland for Australia
Conference watch: #MedInfo23
Reject racism
A recent advertisement in the Australian Financial Review caused anger, outrage and hurt, providing a reminder of how embedded racism is in Australian media, and how harmful this is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, especially at a time when elements of #AusPol are stoking racism.
Lodge a complaint with Ad Standards
Updates on The Voice
#AusPol
Australia’s first national “wellbeing framework”, to be released by Treasurer Jim Chalmers within weeks, will provide about 50 indicators of how Australians are doing, that will then be tracked over time. Read more at The Conversation.
Read Minister Ged Kearney’s statement: The Government welcomes the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s decision to remove a number of restrictions on health professionals who prescribe and dispense MS-2 Step (mifepristone and misoprostol). The Therapeutic Goods Administration’s decision has been made in response to an application from MS Health and will take effect from 1 August.
