Public Health Medicine at Deakin University
Australia’s rural and remote communities face significant healthcare disadvantage when compared to major cities. Critical workforce shortages, inaccessibility to healthcare services, and increased rates of risk-taking behaviours are all major contributors to this health inequity. In an attempt to address this issue, the Department of Health introduced the Stronger Rural Health Strategy with the aim […]
June 2023 marks 4 years since the implementation of Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) in Victoria. It also marks the start of a Parliamentary review into Victoria’s VAD Act, providing an opportunity for reflection on the first 4 years of the Act. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) allows terminally ill patients, who meet a […]
G’day. Skin cancer is something that affects a lot of Aussies, especially those living outside of major cities. Talking about skin and cancer may not sound like the most exciting topic, but, it’s super important. Is that itchy mole bothering you? How about that new lesion that’s popped up out of nowhere? Well, there’s a […]
Cancer incidence is on the rise with new estimates showing that 2 in 5 Australians will be diagnosed with cancer by age 85. Patients who live in regional, rural, and remote areas face an additional cancer battle accessing quality and timely healthcare. Whilst completing my 2022 medical studies in Western Victoria, I met many patients […]
Francis Lusem, a member of the Healthy Sianios and Samo Villages project in Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea. Francis helped his community transform the land behind him from a swamp to a healthier setting. In the Pacific, the concept of Healthy Islands is enshrined in the Yanuca Island Declaration (1995) that […]
Australian consumers need clearer and more effective guidance for choosing healthy foods. In the context of national guidelines promoting wellbeing through food, physical activity and mental health, and to protect Chileans, and particularly children, from a growing supply of processed and ultra-processed food and beverages, Chile’s Ministry of Health (MOH) introduced front-of-package warning labels […]
Did you know 2 out of 3 Australian’s live with overweight or obesity and that 2 out of 3 of these Australian’s would like their health practitioner to initiate a conversation about weight? In such a conversation, general practitioners (GP’s) can use words and phrases that engage patients in weight loss interventions, even in the […]
We are facing a double burden of malnutrition – a large proportion of the worlds’ population are overweight or obese and yet others struggle to get enough food. Non-communicable diseases are now the leading cause of death worldwide and numbers are increasing. Knowledge of and access to healthy food is critical for reducing this global burden. […]
Australia’s health star rating (HSR) system has been in place since 2014 but 73% of stakeholders who provided feedback for the 5-year review said that it has been ineffective at meeting the overall objective of ‘providing convenient, relevant and readily understood nutrition information and/or guidance on food packs to assist consumers to make informed food […]