What health status you are comparing: * Compared with people in major cities, those in regional and remote areas were less likely to report very good or excellent health. * People living in rural Australia don’t always have the same opportunities for good health as those living in major cities. * They have higher levels of mortality, morbidity and health risk factors than those who live in major cities.
The health inequalities your group suffers from: * The main contributors to higher death rates in regional and remote areas are coronary heart disease, other circulatory diseases, motor vehicle accidents and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (e.g. emphysema). These higher death rates may relate to differences in access to services, risk factors and the regional/remote environment.
Life expectancy: * Life expectancy is lower for people in regional and remote areas, particularly for indigenous Australians. * Life expectancy decreases with increases remoteness. Compared with major cities, the life expectancy in regional areas is between one and two years lower, and up to seven years lower for remote areas.
Mortality:
* This is illustrated, most robustly, in measures of mortality. In 2002–04, death rates in regional and remote areas were between 10–70% higher than in Major Cities (AIHW 2007). * Two broad causes stood out as being particularly important: Circulatory disease contributed to a large number of ‘excess’ deaths; while injury was important because it contributed to a large number
Biological determinants:
Behavioural determinants:
Social determinants: * Indicators describing the nature and extent of health dimensions across regions and time provide a systematic set of measures which can inform rural health policy.
MORBIDITY:
* In relationship to morbidity, people in rural and remote areas are also more likely to have certain chronic diseases than people living in major cities.
BURDEN OF DISEASE: * In terms of burden of disease, the majority (64.5 per cent) of the burden was in major cities (because they account for two-thirds of the populations), the total of burden per head of population increases with remoteness, and this is due to higher rates of burden for most causes, particularly injuries. health risk factors: * People in regional and remote Australia are more likely to engage in behaviours associated with poorer health, although their diet is likely to include more vegetables. * People living in rural and remote areas are more likely to have kidney dialysis
There are also inter-regional differences in risk factors; for example, people from regional and remote areas tend to be more likely