Centralising health services in cities has created inequity, and community solutions are needed in rural and regional Australia.
As funding for health falls for people living in rural and remote Australia, so does life expectancy. Women in remote areas live on average 19 years less, and men 13.9 fewer years than other Australians.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that coronary heart disease and diabetes kill more people in remote communities than in metropolitan areas. Rapid access to acute care for heart attack or stroke is only part of the story.
There is a pressing need for services in rural and remote communities to help people reduce risk factors like high blood pressure, pre-diabetes and overweight. Providing them would help people live longer, healthier lives, and could redue the strain on general practicioners.
There is an opportunity to take health to people in remote areas, in the form of community sport-based interventions that reduce lifestyle diseases.
“Football, basketball, swimming, cycling, tennis, cricket, paddling and rugby have all been used successfully to deliver interventions that have improved people’s health,” said SportHealthTech CEO, Bastien Wallace.
“Supporting sports clubs to deliver health improvement programs could help reduce health inequality, and the strain on health budgets at the same time,” said Bastien.
Physicians and patients in rural and regional Australia want more ways to impove health, and sports clubs could help provide local solutions.
Why not check out our research on these programs, and the work we are doing to make delivery easier?
