More than a third of illness and injury cases this year could have been avoided, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found
Being overweight will overtake smoking as the leading risk factor for disease by 2024, new government figures show.
The Australian Burden of Disease 2024 study, released on Thursday by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), estimates that Australians lose 5.8 million years of healthy life due to illness, injury or premature death. This loss of healthy life is known as the “burden of disease”.
The study, which included national estimates for 220 diseases and injuries, found that between 2003 and 2024, the overall disease burden fell by 10%, driven by a 26.
But the proportion of people getting sick or injured increased by 7%.
The study found more than a third of illness and injury (36 per cent) in Australia by 2024 could be avoided, listing 20 risk factors including alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, poor diet, being overweight or obese and smoking.
While smoking was once the leading risk factor for disease burden, its contribution has fallen by 41% since 2003, with being overweight becoming the most important factor.
The report acknowledges that tobacco estimates do not include nicotine e-cigarettes, which were beyond the scope of the study but will be included in the list of new risk factors in 2026.
The study found that 8.3% of the disease burden in 2024 could be attributed to overweight risk factors, followed by 7.6% to smoking and 4.8% to all dietary risks.
Disease risk factors
Public Health Association of Australia chief executive Terry Slevin said while a third of the burden of disease was preventable, governments were spending only one in 50 health dollars on public and preventive health to keep people healthy.
Slavin called the study a “really important scorecard” for the health of the Australian people and said it “shows that the decades of attention and effort we’ve invested in tobacco control are paying off”.
“When it comes to the bigger picture of the health of the Australian people, the next step is to start turning the tide on overweight and obesity”.
“It’s not a loss of control for the individual, it’s a change in the social environment where we’re less physically active, our food supply is changing and we’re more actively promoting energy-dense, low-nutrient foods,
“As is happening around the world, we are becoming more overweight and obese.”
Slavin said several government reports had recommended strategies including tax policies, incentives for the food industry to reformulate products, reduce the amount of sugar in products and make health star ratings mandatory rather than voluntary.
But Dr Jim Hungerford, chief executive of the Butterfly Foundation, wrote an editorial in November criticising the AIHW for focusing too much on weight statistics.
Natalie Spicer, the foundation’s head of clinical and support services, said: “While this public health messaging is targeted at a population level, at an individual level, weight-centric health messages are unhelpful and in fact may perpetuate harmful stigma.”
“You can’t infer a person’s health, diet and exercise behavior based on their size or appearance,” Spicer said.