Focus on Inequities in Child Health
Date published:
03 Sep 2018
Leading child health experts presented to parliamentary representatives, chief paediatricians and heads of key medical, public health and community bodies at an Inequities in Child Health Forum hosted by the RACP at Parliament House in Canberra on 15 August.
Funding for the development of a National Action Plan for Children’s Health 2020 – 2030 was announced at the event by Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt. Shadow Health Minister Catherine King also spoke at the event.
The plan “will ensure that we give our Indigenous Australians, our rural Australians, and our younger Australians in more difficult socioeconomic circumstances, the best shot at the best life to be the best person that they can otherwise ever hope to be," Minister Hunt stated.
Child health experts Associate Professor Susan Woolfenden, Professor Sharon Goldfeld and Professor Ngiare Brown presented on the actions and strategies needed to reduce inequities in health care access and outcomes. They also discussed the roles health practitioners and politicians can play, as buffers against cycles of disadvantage.
The Forum received significant media coverage, ensuring an important area for child health and wellbeing was at the forefront of Australian minds.
While in Canberra, RACP President Associate Professor Mark Lane, President of the Paediatrics and Child Health Division Professor Paul Colditz and senior paediatricians met with the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer, Health Minister, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Minister, Shadow Health and Medicare Minister and Dr Mike Freelander MP.
The RACP is continuing its dialogue with key decision makers to ensure high quality, truly universal health care services are available to all children regardless of their postcode.
To find out more about this issue, you can read our Inequities in Child Health Position Statement or its accompanying fact sheet, and access the tools in our online advocacy kit.
You can also listen to Professor Sharon Goldfeld discuss the issue of child health inequities on ABC RN Breakfast as recorded on 15 August 2018.