Page 2419 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 31 July 2018
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
over a lifetime. This has dropped from 22 per cent in 2013 to 14.3 per cent in 2016. Of particular concern was that men were three times more likely than women to drink alcohol at levels that put them at risk of lifetime harm.
The healthy Canberra report shows, similarly to the rest of Australia, that pharmaceutical abuse and misuse is fast becoming an area of public health concern. To combat these harms, the ACT government implemented the drugs and poisons information system in 2014 to monitor the prescribing of controlled medicines to enable early intervention and to prevent harm. Legislation passed by the government just a few months ago will see a new online prescription monitoring tool, known as DORA. It will be introduced to assist doctors and pharmacists with their clinical decision-making.
To guide our response to these challenges, the government is developing a new drug strategy action plan covering the years 2018 to 2021, which is expected to be released later this year. The plan is aligned to the national drug strategy and aims to build safe, healthy and resilient communities. It will do this through preventing and minimising alcohol, tobacco and other drug-related health, social, cultural and economic harms among individuals, families and communities.
In line with the national strategy, the ACT government will focus on harm minimisation taking a three-pillared approach that includes demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction. This approach will aim to prevent uptake and delay in first use; reduce harmful use and support people to recover; restrict availability and access to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs to prevent and reduce problems; and encourage safer behaviours and reduce preventable risk factors.
The healthy Canberra report also shows that, consistent with trends across Australia, there has been a steady increase in chlamydia and gonorrhoea rates, with the highest number of notifications being detected amongst the 20 to 29-year-old age group. Careful monitoring is needed in order to be able to respond to new public health trends and threats. I welcome this morning’s recommendation from the estimates committee in this regard, and particularly Ms Cheyne’s very useful questions during the estimates committee hearing, to discuss an issue which is not normally raised in public debate. We look forward to responding to the estimates committee report.
I am proud to say that this report reminds us that people in the ACT enjoy one of the highest life expectancies in the world and can also expect to live many of those years in good health. Life expectancy at birth was 81.2 years for men and 85.1 years for women. Men can expect to live 72.3 years in good health, while for women that figure was 74.6 years. Population health initiatives aim to ensure that the period lived in good health is as long as possible.
However, not all Canberrans are as healthy as they could be, with chronic disease now causing most of the poor health and premature disease in the ACT. Similar to national rates, roughly half of all adults reported having a long-term health condition such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, mental illness or heart disease. Once established, these conditions, illnesses and diseases often remain throughout a person’s life and require long-term management by health professionals.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video