Volume 188 - Issue 6
Our hearts and minds — what would it take to become the healthiest country in the world?
Author: Bret Hart
Med J Aust 2008; 188 (6): 375. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2008.tb01664.x
Published online: 17 March 2008
Published online: 17 March 2008
To the Editor: It is a worthy aspiration for Australia to become the world’s healthiest country, but it will take revolutionary leadership to prevent and manage the effects of obesity that will reverse the previous gains in reducing heart disease.1 In addition, we have to overcome the adverse impact on the health of young people caused by fundamental changes in Australia, highlighted by Eckersley.2 He also identifies medical practitioners as a potential obstacle in that we are overfocused, with government approval, “on an individual, biomedical, disease-centred approach to health at the expense of a more social, preventative model”. He also calls for an increase from the current investment in prevention and public health programs, 1% of health expenditure — but that will only occur if his more radical suggestion is adopted: that governments change their focus from wealth to health creation.
It was Japan that embraced this concept, with a health creation policy developed in 1978. It led to a law ensuring that at least 5% of their compulsory health insurance expenditure is allocated to preventive activities. If we are going to achieve Ring and O’Brien’s vision, we are going to have to do more than adopt Japan’s healthy diet.
Other keys to their success are: good antenatal care; reinforcement of high breastfeeding rates by provision of small incentive payments; routine home visits to women during pregnancy and during the postpartum period by maternal and child health care workers; and all parents having their own maternal child health record.
While these and other measures have probably contributed to Japan having the lowest infant mortality in the world, these interventions are also likely to have influenced their longevity by preventing the Barker hypothesis from being applied. This hypothesis, or developmental origins theory, was derived from observations of infants who are small at birth being at higher risk of increased blood pressure and other adverse cardiovascular endpoints later in life.3
It is interventions during the early years that have evidence of high returns on investment — whereas attempts to influence adult behaviour are difficult, and can fail.4,5
References
- Ring IT, O’Brien JF. Our hearts and minds — what would it take to become the healthiest country in the world? Med J Aust 2007; 187: 447-451. 0_i1091828
- Eckersley RM. The health and well-being of young Australians: present patterns and future challenges. Int J Adolesc Med Health 2007; 19: 217-227. 0_CBBHDAHI
- Barker DJP. The origins of the developmental origins theory. J Intern Med 2007; 261: 412-417. 0_i1091832
- Heckman JJ. Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children. Science 2006; 312: 1900-1902. 0_i1091835
- Hayhow BD, Lowe MP. Addicted to the good life: harm reduction in chronic disease management. Med J Aust 2006; 184: 235–237. 0_i1091837