New alliance targets health inequities
The Social Determinants of Health Alliance has used its official launch in Canberra today to call on Australian governments to address increasing inequities in health across the nation and to take into account how legislative decisions impact health.
Above: Flinders University’s Professor Fran Baum at today’s Social Determinants of Health Alliance launch at Parliament House Canberra
A new alliance of health, social and public policy organisations has used its official launch in Canberra today to call on Australian governments to address increasing inequities in health across the nation.
The Social Determinants of Health Alliance (SDOHA) was officially launched by Minister for Social Inclusion Mark Butler at the Parliament House event.
SDOHA, which aims to use the knowledge of its members to bring about fundamental change with how the nation addresses health, has also called on governments to take into account how legislative decisions impact health outcomes.
The alliance has also made a submission into the current senate inquiry into Australia’s domestic response to the WHO’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health report Closing the gap within a generation.
Professor Fran Baum of Flinders University (pictured) sat on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health and spoke at today’s event.
“This alliance is saying enough is enough and it’s time for action,” Ms Baum said in a statement.
“Over many years, there has been growing evidence about the role of the social determinants of health – the everyday conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and play – in predicting the ongoing health of a person, but the response in Australia has been slow,” she said.
Australian National University Professor Sharon Friel was head of the Commission of the Social Determinants oh Health’s science secretariat.
The current senate inquiry creates an opportunity for progress to be made, she said.
“There is some good work going on in Australia, but in a piecemeal fashion,” Prof Friel said.
“We need an explicit policy framework and we need systematic analysis of what is happening around the country, and what is working. We may be underselling what is happening, but there’s currently no real way of knowing that.”
Professor Stephen Duckett, health program director at the Grattan Institute, said truly addressing health inequity required a recalibration of how politicians, policy makers and health professionals thought about disease.
“When we look at a condition like diabetes, prevalence is better explained by where you live than behavioural risk factors such as smoking or exercise,” he said.
Chair of the Australian Social Inclusion Board, Lin Hatfield Dodds, welcomed the launch of the new alliance and said Australia was lucky to have internationally renowned experts on the social determinants of health.
“An advisory body like the Social Inclusion Board has much to gain from the insights that can be offered by those experts and by the new Alliance,” Ms Hatfield Dodds said.
Current SDOHA members
Australian Council of Social Service
Australian Federation of Aids Organisations
Australian Health Care Reform Alliance
Australian Health Promotion Association
Australian Medicare Local Alliance
Centre for Health Equity Training Research & Evaluation
Indigenous Allied Health Australia
Public Health Association of Australia
Tasmania’s Social Determinants of Health Advocacy Network
