Australia: the healthiest country by 2020
National Preventative Health Strategy - Overview
Supporting infrastructure for all phases
Table of contents
- Chair's Foreword
- The purpose of the Strategy; What is in the Strategy?
- The need for urgent, comprehensive, prioritised and sustained action; What will be different because of the Strategy?
- Prevention works; Progressive, staged and comprehensive action
The Strategy – summarised, prioritised and phased- The conceptual framework for the Preventative Health Strategy
Strategic directions- Ensuring effective implementation – the national infrastructure for prevention
- Conclusion – a call to action
- References
- Acknowledgements
- The establishment of the National Prevention Agency (NPA)
- Social marketing
- Data, surveillance and monitoring
- National research infrastructure
- Workforce development
- Future funding models for prevention
The establishment of the National Prevention Agency (NPA)
Establish the NPA as an independent agency able to translate broad policy intent into evidence-based strategies with built-in evaluation and the capacity to leverage a range of policy levers and partners- Appoint an expert, cross-sectoral Board of Governance of the Agency
- The Taskforce recommends that the NPA:
- Provides a national clearing house for the monitoring and evaluation of national policies and programs in preventative health
- Publishes annual reports on the state of preventative health
- Advises COAG, through the Australian Health Ministers Conference (AHMC), on national priorities and options for preventative health
- Administers national programs, facilitates national partnerships and advises on national infrastructure for surveillance, monitoring, research and evaluation, as charged by AHMC
- Develops for consideration by AHMC the next phase of preventative health reform to follow after this Strategy
- Has a greater capacity and budget than that currently envisaged in the COAG agreement on preventive health
- NPA to develop a web-based clearing house/register for organisational policies, plans and achievements in order to share good practice across the country
- NPA to commission/conduct surveys of activities undertaken by different sectors, and the barriers to and enablers of action, and to report on these
- Develop a national recognition and award scheme for outstanding contributions, large and small, to making Australia the healthiest country by 2020
Social marketing
- NPA to develop and implement sustained social marketing strategies to:
- Increase healthy eating and physical activity, and reduce sedentary behaviour
- Reduce smoking, drawing on successful state campaigns as appropriate
- Reduce harmful drinking
Data, surveillance and monitoring
- Implement and extend the National Health Risk Survey Program, funded under the COAG Agreement on Preventive Health
- Establish comprehensive national surveillance systems for obesity, tobacco and alcohol
National research infrastructure
- Establish a National Strategic Framework for preventative health research, a preventative health strategic research fund, and a national preventative health research register
- Develop a network of prevention research centres, which would partner with community interventions in the region they serve, and collaborate with NGOs and others in specialty areas (for example, obesity, tobacco or alcohol, school settings or disadvantaged populations)
Workforce development
- NPA to oversee as a matter of priority a national audit of the prevention workforce outlined in the 2008–09 COAG Agreement on Preventive Health; strategy arising from the audit to be brought to AHMC for implementation
- Ensure prevention becomes an important part of the work of the Health Workforce Australia Agency
Future funding models for prevention
- NPA to investigate and provide advice in regard to the potential development of a funding framework for prevention, both within and external to the health sector