It's good news week. There are lots of bad things happening in the world
and journalists regard it as their job to dig them out and wave them in
front of your face. No piece of disheartening news should go
unreported.
But good things are happening, too. And I often think
people would enjoy reading the news more if we didn't ignore so many of
them.
One of the main jobs of the federal government's Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare is to produce a report card on the state
of Australia's Health every two years. The latest edition is just out
and it's crammed with good news.
Perhaps our most basic desire is
to delay our death, and on this score we're doing particularly well.
"Australians have one of the highest life expectancies in the world and
can expect to live about 25 years longer, on average, than a century
ago," the institute says.
In 1910, a baby boy could expect to live
for 55 years and a baby girl 59 years. Today it's 80 and 84. That puts
us sixth highest on the world league table for boys and seventh for
girls, but the countries coming top - Iceland and Japan - beat us by
less than two years. And we leave the Yanks for dust.
Of course,
that's just for babies. Those of us who survive beyond our youth can
expect to live longer again. A man turning 65, for instance, can expect
to live another 19 years to 84. Women can expect another 22 years to
reach 87.
All that's on average, of course. It happens because, by
the time you reach 65, you've successfully avoided having your life cut
short by accidents or other causes of premature death. You've become
one of those who'll exceed the at-birth average.
But even if we
are living longer, is that so wonderful if it means we're spending more
years living with some kind of disability? Well, some disabilities are
worse than others. And my guess is most people would tell you that,
though their particular disability isn't fun, it beats the alternative.
The
news is better than that, however. The institute's figuring shows that
as our years of life are lengthening, our years of living with
disability aren't increasing commensurately. And though they're
increasing slowly for women - to almost 20 years for a newly born girl -
they're falling slowly for men, to less than 18 years for baby boys.
The
rate of daily smoking has been falling for 50 years, from 43 per cent
of adults in 1964 to 16 per cent today. Quitting smoking can increase
your life expectancy by up to 10 years if you do it early enough.
The
institute says vaccination is one of the most successful and
cost-effective health interventions. And the proportion of
five-year-olds who've been vaccinated rose from 79 per cent to 92 per
cent over the four years to 2012. Thank God for the nanny state.
The
proportion of new cases of cancer each year is steady - kept up by the
ageing of our population - but rates of death from cancer are continuing
to fall. Over the 20 years to 2011, the mortality rate for all cancers
fell by 17 per cent to 172 deaths per 100,000 people.
This is
because of reduced exposure to the risk of cancer (such as fewer
smokers), improved prevention (such as better sun protection), advances
in cancer treatment and, for some cancers, earlier detection through
screening programs (bowel, breast and cervical).
The reduction was
mostly the result of falls in lung, prostate and bowel cancer deaths
among men, and falls in breast and bowel cancer deaths among women.
The
five-year survival rate from all cancers has increased from 47 per cent
to 66 per cent over the past 20-odd years. And among people who've
already survived five years, the chance of surviving for at least
another five is 91 per cent.
There's been a 20 per cent fall in
the rate of heart attacks in recent years and death rates from heart
disease have fallen by almost three-quarters over the past three
decades. The rate of strokes has fallen by 25 per cent in recent years
and the death rate from strokes has fallen by more than two-thirds.
In
just over 20 years, the death rate from asthma has fallen from a peak
of 6.6 per 100,000 people to 1.5 deaths. The rate of people being
hospitalised for asthma has fallen by 38 per cent.
And the rates
of death through most causes of injury - accidents, drowning, suicide
and homicide - are down by 3 per cent to 5 per cent in less than a
decade.
We're even feeling better. More than half of those 15 and
over consider themselves to be in excellent or very good health, with
another 30 per cent saying their health is good. This is up a bit on a
similar survey in 1995.
What's more, even the oldies are feeling
pretty good. Among people aged 65 to 74 living in households, more than
three-quarters rated their health as excellent, very good or good. Among
those 75 and older, it was two-thirds.
It would be wrong to think
everything about our health and healthcare is fine but, just this once,
we'll celebrate what's going right.
