We all like to think we are free agents and have huge degrees of agency. But, in reality, our health reflects the environments we live in.
Birth registration is required for many activities throughout a person’s life yet in some states up to 20% of Aboriginal children aren’t registered.
Marianna Massey/AAP
Around 20% of Aboriginal births in Western Australia between 1996 and 2012 weren’t registered, new research shows. This has many social and health ramifications for their future.
An Aussie smile is an instant indicator of socioeconomic status, employability and self-esteem. It’s also a predictor of physical health. So it’s shocking that Australians’ dental health has not improved…
Newly arrived refugees face many obstacles to making healthy food choices.
Lucian/Flickr
Refugees settling in Australia constantly face new challenges. They have to re-adjust to new income levels, cultural practices and language. They also face a new food environment, where many traditional…
Governments can provide environments that encourage physical activity.
Emily Orpin/Flickr
Almost two-thirds of Australian adults and one in four children are overweight or obese. Excess weight is responsible for 7,200 deaths each year in Australia, as well one in five heart attacks, half of…
Life expectancy continues to rise, and years lived with disability decline.
Ozgur Coskun/Shutterstock
Australians have one the longest life expectancies in the world but are living with growing levels of lifestyle-induced chronic illness, according to the latest national health report card. The Australian…
Equity isn’t just a nice idea, it’s also how we create a better society.
Richard Potts/Flickr
Despite government claims that the budget would be fair and all Australians would contribute to the “budget rescue job”, reality has not supported these claims. And this is bad news for health and social…
The geographic setting of where you live is important for health in a number of ways.
Daniel Pietzsch/Flickr
Socioeconomic disadvantage and its impact on where we live and work (and how we get between the two), has enormous implications for health and well-being. But the picture is not as clear cut as many people…
Your socioeconomic status affects your access to quality and affordable education and health care.
Andrew Warran/Flickr
The Conversation is running a series, Class in Australia, to identify, illuminate and debate its many manifestations. Here, Sharon Friel considers the points where class and health interact. The unequal…
Dr Kiran Martin (centre) has been working with New Delhi’s slum dwellers for 25 years.
Asha Health & Development Society Photo Archives
Watch the video of public health professor Rob Moodie interviewing Dr Kiran Martin below. Kiran Martin is the founder of Asha, a community health and development society that works with over 500,000 people…
The lower down the pecking order you are, the greater the stresses associated with everyday living, and worse your health.
Travis/Flickr
The traditional view of health is a biomedical one – stop people from getting ill by preventing infection and treating disease. But a growing body of research showing that health is the result of social…
Almost all diseases (as well as social outcomes) show a strong relationship with socioeconomic measures.
Shutterstock
Fiona Stanley is the director of this year’s Melbourne Festival of Ideas: The Art and Science of Wellbeing, which opens today and continues until October 6, 2013. Here she explains the ethos of the Festival’s…
The growing gap between rich and poor in Australia puts the country on the road to the level of inequality in the United States.
Robt Gossard/Flickr
The launch this week of his new book Battlers and Billionaires: The Story Of Inequality in Australia, by parliamentarian and economist Andrew Leigh, raises a question about whether the issue of growing…
Australia ranks 26th out of the 34 OECD countries for child poverty.
Anne Roberts
Around one in six Australian children live below the poverty line, according to a report released today by the Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY). While the rates have improved…
Legal services in partnership with health-care providers can have a significant impact on the health of disadvantaged people.
Secom Bahia
Medical-legal partnerships have broken down the barriers to accessible legal services for people experiencing health issues in the United States. Such programs demonstrate the health benefits of effective…
Organisational leaders have demanding roles and face intense scrutiny of their performance.
Dave 77459/Flickr
For many, work means stress and as we all know, too much stress can lead to ill health. But research showing that people in positions of power are not very stressed, may hold clues for how workplaces can…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne