PDHPE HSC CORE 1 NOTES
Core 1: Health Priorities in Australia
How are the 4 critical questions linked together?
The 4 critical questions are linked together as each question interrelates, they focus on Australia’s health and issues and methods to tackle those issues.
Focus Question: How are...
PDHPE HSC CORE 1 NOTES
Core 1: Health Priorities in Australia
How are the 4 critical questions linked together?
The 4 critical questions are linked together as each question interrelates, they focus on
Australia’s health and issues and methods to tackle those issues.
Focus Question: How are priority issues for Australia’s
health identified?
• Measuring health status:
Epidemiology
The study of the patterns, causes, effects of health and disease conditions in defined
populations through the collection of data.
Health status
The pattern of health of the population in general over a period of time.
Why measure health status?
Government and key organisations within the health industry need the measure so they can
make informed decisions on their targets.
Analysing health statistics enables government to target health issues that have become an
issue within the community. I.e. targeting Diabetes
o The role of Epidemiology
Government and health organisations within the health industry use epidemiology to make
more informed decisions.
Epidemiology provides information on the following
-How many people have a certain disease
-How many people die from a certain disease
-How much money does it cost to treat a particular illness
-What are the factors that cause groups to have higher incidence of certain disease e.g.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People (ATSI) and higher rate of diabetes
-Trends of current health standards
Analysing health statistics enables government to target health issues that have become an
issue within their community
o Measures of Epidemiology
Measure What does it What does it tell us? Trend in Australia
measure?
Mortality -Death rate -What are the main -CVD is our leading killer
- Measures how many reasons people in our but is decreasing
people have died from a society are dying?
particular disease over a
period of time (usually 1
year)
Infant Mortality -Measure the number -An indicator of health -Decreasing in Australia
of deaths under the age standards in our society - ATSI way
of 1/ 1000 live births -Access to health care, above national
average
, quality of health care,
affordability of health
care, positive health
decisions within society
Morbidity- Incidence -Measure of disease rate -What are the NEW -18087 new cases of
-The number of newly conditions our society breast cancers in 2018
diagnosed cases of needs to commit -Increase since 2014
disease (usually per resources toward?
year) -What are the NEW
conditions that people in
our society are suffering
from?
Morbidity- Prevalence -Prevalence is the total -What are the conditions -436366 people are
number of people with that people in our living with dementia in
the particular disease society are suffering 2018
-Measure of disease rate from?
-What are the conditions
our society needs to
commit resources
towards?
Life expectancy -Average number of - An indicator of health -That number is
years a person can status in a society continuing to increase
expect to live in a
particular society
• Critique the use of epidemiology to describe health status
by considering questions such as:
o What can epidemiology tell us?
-Tells us the basic health status of a population by examining the life expectancy of a certain
population
-Identifies all causes of death and identifies emerging health concerns by judging the
mortality and morbidity
-Determines the illnesses and disease that need to be targeted with funding, health
promotion, etc. by judging the mortality and morbidity
-It can be used to assess the effectiveness of health promotion by looking at the mortality,
infant mortality and morbidity
o Who uses these measures?
-Government health policy makers
-Health promoters
-Researchers
-Health and medical practitioners
-Makers of health products e.g. diagnostic machines
-Individuals (allows them to make informed decisions)
o Does epidemiology measure everything about health status?
-It provides us with large amounts of statistical information however it does need to be
interpreted correctly
-It can be open to bias
-It doesn’t inform us how the determinants of health influence the statistics
,-It does not provide information on quality of life
• Use tables and graphs from health reports to analyse current
trends in life expectancy and major causes of morbidity and
mortality for the general population and comparing males
and females
Current trends in Australia
Mortality
The top 10 major causes of mortality:
Men Women General Population
1 Coronary Heart Coronary Heart
Dementia
Disease Disease
2 Lung Cancer Coronary Heart Dementia
Disease
3 Dementia Cerebrovascular Cerebrovascular
Disease Disease
4 Cerebrovascular Chronic Lower Lung Cancer
Disease Respiratory Disease
5 Chronic Lower Chronic Lower
Lung Cancer
Respiratory Disease Respiratory Disease
6 Prostate Cancer Breast Cancer Bowel Cancer
7 Bowel Cancer Bowel Cancer Diabetes
8 Lymph Cancer Flu and pneumonia Lymph Cancer
9 Diabetes Diabetes Heart Failure
10 Suicide Urinary Disease Urinary Disease
Morbidity
Disease General Population Males Females
Cardio Vascular trending trending trending trending trending trending
Disease upwards upwards up up up up
Dementia and trending trending trending trending trending trending
Alzheimer’s up up up up up up
Cancer (All types) trending trending
up up
Lung Cancer trending trending trending
up up up
Breast Cancer trending trending trending trending trending trending
up up up up up up
Skin Cancer trending trending trending
up up up
Respiratory trending trending trending trending trending trending
disease up up up up up up
Diabetes trending trending trending trending
up up up up
Injury trending trending trending trending trending
, up up up up up
Mental health trending trending trending trending trending trending
problems/illness up up up up up up
Life expectancy
Group Life expectancy Trend
Australian population 82.5 Increasing
ATSI 69.1 Males Gradually increasing
73.7 Females
Low SES ~80 Lower life expectancy
than normal population of
around 2.1 years
Increasing trend
Rural and remote areas 1-2 years lower in rural Gradually increasing
5-7 years lower in remote
People with disability 65 Increasing
• Identifying priority health issues
Epidemiology +
Social Justice Principles - Priority population groups - Prevalence of condition- potential for
prevention & early intervention – Cost to the individual and the community
= Informed decisions
o Social Justice Principles
Define Social justice principles
Social justice principles refer to values that favours measures that aim at decreasing or
eliminating inequity; promoting inclusiveness of diversity; and establishing environments
that are supportive of all people. The social justice principles include: equity, diversity and
supportive environments.
Explain its position in the pyramid
The social justice principles places itself at the bottom of the pyramid as it is the basis of the
dot point “Identifying priority health issues”. In order to successfully priority health issues,
we need to firstly understand the social justice principles in order to discover our targets.
Equity
Equity means taking action to achieve fairness. This is done by allocating resources and
entitlements, including power, fairly across the population.
Diversity
Diversity refers to the differences that exist between individuals and groups.
Supportive environments
Supportive environments are environments where “people live, work and play that protect
people from threats to health and increase their ability to make health-promoting choices.”
What if we removed social justice principles from the process for identifying priority
health issues?
If social justice principles were removed, we wouldn’t be able to incorporate the aspects of
“equity, diversity and supportive environments” onto our allocation of resources. We may
be able to identify certain priority health groups but we wouldn’t be able to follow the
social
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