A red light for preventive health

In the midst of an election campaign the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education has published an analysis of the progress made in implementing Australia’s national preventive health agenda.

This report, A red light for preventive health: Assessing progress against the Preventative Health Strategy’s alcohol-specific actionsfocuses on the 32 alcohol recommendations made in the 2009 Preventative Health Taskforce’s Australia: the Healthiest Country by 2020 report.

It does not make for happy reading.

Our analysis found of the 32 recommendations, only four have been fully implemented, 18 have been partially implemented and no action has been taken against 10.

The adoption (and presumably the implementation) of a national preventive health reform agenda was the culmination of efforts by Labor in the lead up to the 2007 election ‘that it intended to make preventing chronic disease a priority for Australia’s health system’.

It was the right sort of thinking if you subscribe to the notion that good health prevention strategies will stem the flow of patients into the health system and make for healthier lives.

Labor’s political sentiment was on the money.

But once again all the optimism surrounding a government health reform agenda that might do more than place the ambulance at the bottom cliff looks like a disappointing failure.

And the reason for this looks more like a case of neglect, rather than calculation.

The Taskforce chaired by Melbourne University’s Professor Rob Moodie, and comprising some of Australia’s leading public health experts, identified alcohol as one four areas for action.

The 32 alcohol-specific ‘actions’ spanned a range of areas including improving the safety of people, increasing public awareness about alcohol’s harms, regulating alcohol promotions and reforming alcohol taxation and pricing structures.

Former Health Minister Nicola Roxan said in announcing the Rudd Government’s Gold Book response in May 2010, that this was a ‘critical first step in reshaping [Australia’s] health system…[and that] preventative health is now here to stay at the heart of our health reform agenda’.

To reinforce this ambition, the Government legislated the establishment of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency (ANPHA) to drive this new preventive health agenda.

But the results of FARE’s analysis of the Taskforce’s alcohol-related recommendations show how poorly the Government has followed through on its own agenda. I suspect a similar analysis of the Taskforce’s obesity objectives will produce a similarly disappointing result.

As we roll into the last days of this bleak election campaign, what do we hear about prioritising a preventive health agenda?

Not very much.

Treating disease has attracted a modicum of attention. There have been the usual modest announcements about new cancer treatment centres, diabetes programs and other disease screening initiatives. Important, but not game changing.

Population-wide policy measures, like alcohol control, once again seem to have fallen out of favour.

Those of us focused on one of the most preventable causes of harm in Australia today – alcohol misuse – never expected an easy ride and we instinctively take the long view when it comes to making progress.

Nevertheless, it seems that this election the major parties are assiduously avoiding going anywhere near public health policies that will significantly reduce harm, reduce the pressure on the hospital system and prevent disease and injury in our community.

Preventive health should be good politics, because it is good policy.

Unfortunately, it is proving nigh impossible to prosecute major public policy issues during this election campaign.

The neglect on public health policy over the last term of the Parliament was shameful, and the outgoing Government has put at risk the progress that was made in establishing the foundations for a decent preventive health reform agenda.

The analysis undertaken by FARE serves to illustrate the need for persistence and determination in prosecuting a meaningful preventive health agenda. Slacking off has been a recipe for cynicism and mischief by those with a vested interest in seeing the failure of a preventive health agenda.

This election runs the risk that preventive health will be ‘dead, buried and cremated’ over the term of the next Parliament.