Health Promotion and the Preventative Health Taskforce

Abstract

The release in October of the Preventative Health Taskforce?s discussion paper, ?Australia: the healthiest country by 2020? offers health promotion practitioners their greatest opportunity to participate in national policy development for many years. The Taskforce, which was established by the Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon in March, has been asked to develop a National Preventative Health Strategy for the Government by mid-2009, focusing initially on obesity, smoking and alcohol. The Taskforce has proposed the following targets to be achieved by 2020: ? halt and reverse the rise in overweight and obesity; ? reduce the prevalence of daily smoking to 9% or less; ? reduce the prevalence of harmful drinking for all Australians by 30%; and ? contribute to the ?Close the Gap? target for Indigenous people, reducing the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.