Ellen McIntyre, PHC RIS
 The National public health expenditure report 2005-06, shows that Australian health departments spent approximately $1.5 billion ($71 per person) on public health activities in 2005-06. This represents 1.8% of recurrent health expenditure and has remained virtually constant over the last seven years. Areas of health comprising the largest proportion of recurrent health expenditure in 2005-2006 were hospitals (38.6%), medical services (19.3%) and medications (14.3%).
State and territory health departments spent approximately 70% of this $1.5 billion with the remaining 30% being spent by the Australian Government on health programs and activities for which it was directly responsible.
Public health activities included communicable disease control, organised immunisation, environmental health, food standards and hygiene, breast cancer screening, bowel cancer screening, prevention of hazardous and harmful drug use, public health research, selected health promotion, and public health outcomes funded agreements administration.
The highest public health expenditure in 2005-06 was on organised immunisation (22%), followed by selected health promotion (17%) and communicable disease control (17%). Public health research funding comprised 8.4% of public health expenditure.
The public health activities with the highest average annual growth rates over the last seven years were organised immunisation (9.5%), public health research (7.4%) and communicable disease control (4.8%).
On a state and territory basis, public health activities expenditure as a proportion of total health expenditure varied considerably, ranging from 5.8% in the Northern Territory to 1.6% in New South Wale.
The full report is available at <http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10528>.
Reference
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2008). National public health expenditure report 2005–06 . Health and welfare expenditure series no. 32.Cat. no. HWE 39.Canberra: AIHW
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