Your Health: The Chief Health Officer’s report 2012 has been structured using the National Health Performance Framework 2009 and provides an overview of the health of Victorians, in particular their health status and the factors that determine their health.
This domain covers the four dimensions of health status that bring together a range of indicators that summarise the impact of disease and injury on the wellbeing of Victorians.
The indicators provide an overall measure of population health, which may be either wholly or partially attributable to health service intervention:
- Wellbeing: includes measures of physical, mental and social wellbeing
- Health conditions: measured through the prevalence of disease, disorder, injury or trauma or other health-related state
- Human function: measures alterations to body structure or function (impairment), activity limitations and restrictions in participation
- Deaths: includes mortality rates and life expectancy measures.
Determinants of health
The determinants of health impact at the individual or population level. They are key to the prevention of disease and injury and help explain and predict trends and inequalities in health status.
This domain organises indicators under four dimensions:
- Health behaviours: includes attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and behaviours such as patterns of eating, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption
- Biomedical factors: incorporates genetic-related susceptibility to disease and other factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels and body weight
- Community and socioeconomic: measures community factors such as social capital, support services and socioeconomic factors such as housing, education, employment and income
- Environmental factors: includes physical, chemical and biological factors, such as air, water, food and soil quality.