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Hume health wake-up call
Kellie Cameron
04Aug08
HUME residents are among the unhealthiest in the state, according to Leader's first Melbourne-wide health check.
Each of the state's 31 metropolitan municipalities was put through the check-up, based on the latest rates of obesity, diabetes and smoking-related deaths, as well as life expectancy.
It involved ranking the municipalities from one to 31 (one being the worst) for each indicator, and then tallying these to achieve an overall health ranking.
Hume was diagnosed the sixth unhealthiest municipality.
Melton, Maribyrnong and Moreland, all in the city's north-west, were ranked the unhealthiest areas, and Stonnington, in the east, was given the cleanest bill of health.
The health check revealed that when compared to all metropolitan local government areas, Hume has:
* The most deaths attributable to smoking in Melbourne. At 15 per cent of all deaths, it is more than 1 per cent above the next worst area;
* The seventh highest number of obese females (7729) and the third highest number of obese males (7864) out of the 31 municipalities in metropolitan Melbourne. Unlike most other municipalities, Hume has more obese males than females; and,
* Hume has the 19th highest prevalence of diabetes (4361) in metropolitan Melbourne, equivalent to 2.8 per cent of its population.
Melbourne University Global Health professor Rob Moodie said the health status of an area largely depended on the education levels, employment and income of people who lived there.
"These tend to determine people's access to services," he said.
Department of Human Services spokesman Bram Alexander said education, and the impact this had on life choices, and the age of people in an area were factors behind differing life expectancy rates.
He said women often lived longer due to their two-year genetic advantage over men.
Diabetes Australia chief executive Greg Johnson said the prevalence of diabetes was often worst in areas with high rates of obesity.
There were almost 115,000 people with diabetes in Victoria in 2006, and early analysis of 2007 figures shows diabetes rates continuing to climb, Diabetes Victoria says.
The Leader used the latest available figures for the health check, from 2001 to 2006 and broke them down by local government areas.
Mr Moodie said that while funding for more timely health data was needed, some health data aged slowly and the figures used generally gave a good indication of an area's health status.
