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1. Live Life Well: Initiatives of NSW Health
On 18.12.06 the NSW Minister of Health launched a new website, Live Life Well, to target healthy lifestyles that will become a feature of all health promotion activities undertaken by NSW Health, Area Health Services and the Cancer Institute.
This website offers people the opportunity to quit smoking, eat healthy foods, reduce alcohol intake, to exercise more and watch their weight. It also offers an Assessment Tool for citizens to checklist their lifestyle progress.
Details at: http://www.livelifewell.nsw.gov.au/
2. National public health expenditure report 2004-05
On 19.01.07, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released its report on the National public health expenditure, 2004-05.
Expenditure on public health activities aims to prevent illness and enhance the present and future wellbeing and quality of life of a nation's population and such investments minimise future health costs. This publication is the fifth in a series that reports expenditure on public health activities by governments in Australia. It provides detailed estimates of recurrent expenditure for financial year 2004-05 along with selected time series data back to 1999-00. The report summarises estimates of funding and recurrent expenditure from key health departments and agencies of the Australian Government and each State and Territory Government by nine public health activity categories.
AIHW www.aihw.gov.au
3. Healthy Active campaigns make an impact
New research reveals that the Commonwealth Government’s Get Moving physical activity and Go for 2 & 5 fruit and vegetable advertising campaigns have made a positive impact.
Evaluations by Woolcott Research show that the campaigns have increased awareness about the need to exercise 60 minutes a day and about the importance of eating the recommended daily serves of two fruit and five vegetables.
The research shows a high level of awareness of both campaigns, with 80 per cent of adults and 90 per cent of children reporting having seen at least one element of the ‘Go for 2 & 5’ campaign. Most children and teenagers (99 per cent and 96 per cent respectively) had seen at least one element of the physical activity campaign.
Encouragingly, of those exposed to the $6 million Get Moving campaign, 93 per cent of children and 84 per cent of teenagers said that it prompted them to act.
Evaluation of the $5 million Go for 2 & 5 shows that the campaign raised awareness among parents and children of the recommended levels of fruit and vegetable consumption.
Parents citing the correct number of serves of vegetables increased from 24 per cent to 32 per cent and there was an increase from 92 per cent to 94 per cent of parents citing the correct number of fruit serves.
The success of these awareness campaigns will help governments to build other initiatives, such as the $500 million Australian Better Health Initiative to help Australians lead healthy lifestyles and reduce the burden of chronic disease.
The reports are at www.healthyactive.gov.au
Monika Bhatia
Project Manager and Editor, Quality4life
24 January 2007
