A landmark health report has painted a grim pictured regarding the health status of North Queenslanders.

According to the report by Northern Queensland Primary Health Network (NQPHN, North Queenslanders are more disadvantaged, more overweight or obese, eat less fruit, and smoke more than all Queenslanders.

The NQPHN Health Needs Assessment (June 2016) follows the Australian Government Department of Health’s request for all 31 PHNs across Australia to undertake a needs assessment process to identify and analyse health and service needs within their regions.

Northern Queensland PHN Chief Executive Officer Robin Moore said the Health Needs Assessment would inform how the PHN prioritised its activity to address identified needs.

“The process of assessing health needs has identified 15 key priority areas specific to our PHN region, to which we will now tailor resource allocation.”

In particular the top six local health priorities are:

• Improving access to health services in rural and remote areas

• Improving access to mental health services

• Promoting health workforce expansion and sustainability

• Transitioning chronic disease management to community care level

• Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health

• Improving childhood and maternal health.

Mr Moore said the Health Needs Assessment highlights the diversity of the population across the Northern Queensland PHN region.

“We support a high proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the traditional custodians of the land we now live on; rural and remote persons, often living in situations of social isolation; mining communities with large numbers of fly-in fly-out workers; and a high proportion of young families who often have complex maternal and early childhood needs,” he said.

Some of the key findings from the NQPHN Health Needs Assessment include:

• The Northern Queensland PHN region is home to 730,000 people, 83,000 of whom are Indigenous Australians
  
  
• Fifty-five  per cent of people in NQPHN’s region eat the recommended daily fruit intake (compared to 58 per cent in Queensland overall)
  
  
• Almost two in three people in the NQPHN region are overweight or obese (five per cent higher than Queensland overall)
  
  
• One in two women in the Torres Strait and Cape York region smoke during pregnancy (compared to one in six in Queensland overall).
  
  
• The life expectancy in the Torres Strait and Cape York region is on average 12 years less than the state average for Queensland
  
  
• The diabetes rate in Torres and Cape is four times higher than that of Queensland
  
  
• The NQPHN region’s suicide rate for 2011-2013 was 1.5 times the national suicide rate at 17 compared with 10.9 per 100,000 people
  
  
• Overall, the leading causes of death are heart disease and cancer, with suicide the leading cause of death for 15-45 year olds.

To read the NQPHN Health Needs Assessment (June 2016), go to www.professionals.primaryhealth.com.au/local-health-data