Explain Why Injury and Diabetes Have Been Identified as National Health Priority Areas

Injury and diabetes are both considered to be priority health areas when considering Australia's overall health status. To improve Australia's health status, certain areas of health must be identified as priority areas as they contribute to a large number of deaths and/or illness within the Australian population. When determining the burden of injury and diabetes on Australia and its potential to be reduced, health authorities have to consider a number of factors, these factors include; prevalence of the condition, potential for prevention and early intervention, costs to the individual and to the community, priority population groups and social justice principles. Social Justice refers to the notion of eliminating inequity in health, providing inclusiveness or diversity and establishing supportive environments for all Australians. The four social justice principles relating to our health are; Participation, Equity, Access and Rights. Participation refers to the empowerment of individuals and communities to be involved in planning and decision making for good health. To decrease the burden of injury, this could simply mean promoting safe driving or even the promotion of helmets when riding bikes. Both of these things could potentially stop injury associated with car and bike accidents. To decrease diabetes type two, as it is a preventable disease, it could just mean to build walk ways and bike paths to increase physical activity within the community which will in turn decrease the chances of obtaining diabetes type two as being overweight or obese is a severe risk factor.
Equity refers to fair allocation of resources and entitlements without discrimination. The perfect example of how this can benefit both injury and diabetes is the equality within hospitals. For the injured, for those who have diabetes, for different races and for both genders, public hospitals provide help for anyone who needs it. They provide health care professionals for those who need