Prevention is political

We all know we should quit smoking, eat well, exercise daily, and apply our sunscreen. The consequences of not heeding this advice can be significant later in life, but the immediate impacts aren’t as noticeable.

That’s why – while prevention is better than cure – cures get our attention and our money. Less than 2% of Australia’s national health expenditure goes toward preventive health measures. The other 98% is directed to a healthcare system that is buckling under the growing weight of illness in the community.

In addition, the cost of health treatment is skyrocketing, and many Australians can’t afford to manage their chronic conditions.

And much of this is preventable.

Maintaining good health may seem like an entirely personal responsibility, but there are many external factors that make health hard to achieve and maintain, like constant exposure to unhealthy advertising, expensive fresh produce, and infrastructure that keeps us in cars and off our feet.

Governments know how to help people be healthier and in turn, prevent disease. They could impose stricter regulations on unhealthy food industries, make oral healthcare universal under Medicare, or take action on gambling to protect people’s mental and physical wellbeing.

But Australia’s federal, state, and territory governments continue to take a reactionary approach to illness, and don’t invest enough money into stopping people from getting sick.

The government has previously expressed its intention to invest 5% in prevention. The National Preventive Health Strategy (NPHS), adopted in 2021, set a 10-year timeframe to increase prevention spending and implement a variety of public health measures, and had multi-partisan support.

Almost all 30 targets set out in the strategy have received no implementation or resources. (We welcome the exceptions: measures on tobacco and vaping and the establishment of the Lung Cancer Screening Program.)

By investing more in prevention, it would be easier for us all to be healthy, even if we don’t notice it right away.

“The interesting phenomenon about preventing disease is that no one sees themselves as beneficiaries,” says Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, CEO, Public Health Association of Australia.

“No one celebrates the melanoma they avoided because they slip, slop, slapped during their childhood, nor do they thank the tobacco control advocates of the 1980s and 90s for the lung cancer they didn’t get.

“But there are, without question, millions of us who have benefited.”

Not only does preventing disease make sense from a health perspective, but it also makes sense economically.

There is ample evidence that reducing the burden of disease has a much higher economic value than failing to do so. Disease is expensive, incurring long-term economic and budgetary costs in treatment care. Preventive health initiatives could save millions of lives and billions of dollars.

Governments play a significant role in implementing preventive health initiatives. A change of government or structures within government can hinder programs and strategies, and there are challenges with how different governments, agencies, and organisations interact.

There is also the relationship between unhealthy industries and government – a relationship that stops preventive health initiatives through lobbying, revenue, donations and other more subtle means of exercising influence.

All of this must be addressed by the Australian Government.

Preventive health programs provide tangible health outcomes for individuals, are excellent value for money, and deliver co-benefits to many other aspects of society.

The government has the capacity to shift our trajectory away from a disease-burdened community to a healthy and thriving one, and investing in prevention is the first – and best – step.