Draft National Preventive Health Strategy: Response to the Consultation

This submission responds to the Australian Government Department of Health’s survey-based consultation on the draft National Preventive Health Strategy, addressing the principles, enablers, policy achievements and continuing foundations but not the focus areas. Research Australia broadly agrees with the draft and welcomes the target to raise preventive health funding to 5% of health expenditure by 2030. Drawing on its own opinion polling, it maintains that information alone is not enough and that the Strategy should recognise practical programs and policies that support behaviour change. It recommends that the proposed national governance mechanism direct and fund intervention research from within the 5% target and act on monitoring and surveillance data; that the role of state and territory governments be clarified; and that digital health literacy be strengthened and the Strategy integrated with the National Digital Health Strategy, noting lower digital inclusion among older, low-income, Indigenous and disabled Australians. It proposes surveillance using large linked cohort studies and regional health observatories, citing the Australian Geospatial Health Lab, and a systematic evaluation of all existing government-funded prevention programs using common measures such as health-adjusted life expectancy and cost per quality-adjusted life year, weighted for equity. It also suggests rewording policy achievements to emphasise evidence and practical support, simplifying the Strategy’s structure, and addressing injury prevention more explicitly.