Chronic diseases pose major health care challenge
Australia faces an epidemic of chronic disease equivalent to the spread of infectious illnesses in the pre-antibiotics era, a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) expert says. QUT Faculty of Health Executive Dean Andrew Wilson told a Courier-Mail health forum yesterday that one in five Australians could potentially develop diabetes in the future, posing a huge challenge to the health care system. Professor Wilson said “We are facing an epidemic of chronic disease which is equivalent to the epidemic of infectious diseases that we faced in the pre-antibiotic, pre-hygiene eras. We are now the second nation in terms of obesity. We’re neck and neck with the US. Depending which stats you look at, either the US leads or Australia leads (in obesity rates). The consequence of that is an epidemic of diabetes that we are seeing at the moment with all the flow on consequences that come from diabetes. We’re facing a situation where potentially one in every five Australians has diabetes. That care can only be provided in comprehensive primary care environments. I think we are going to have to look very much at what happens in that space.”
http://www.qut.edu.au/about/news/news?news-id=37373