What is the role of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (AFPHM) in Policy and Advocacy at the RACP?
The Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (AFPHM) provides training and continuing education for Public Health Medicine Fellows and trainees. AFPHM is committed to achieving a high standard of population health in Australia and New Zealand. Along with providing education and training in Public Health Medicine, AFPHM supports Public Health Medicine research and development, advocates for the highest standard of population health and promotes public debate on matters that affect the health of the community.
AFPHM Fellows and trainees play a key role in the policy and advocacy work of the RACP.
Health in All Policies
All government policies can play a part in promoting good health by recognising and responding to the social determinants of health (SDoH). Education, transport, housing, environmental policy and more can influence the health of individuals and populations. Recognising the need for a joined-up approach to addressing the SDoH, the RACP has developed a Health in All Policies (HiAP) Position Statement.
The Position Statement is an introduction to HiAP for physicians and other health professionals, encouraging them to consider how it can influence the prevention, treatment and trajectory of illness (physical and mental).
Health professionals play a particularly important role in addressing the SDoH by influencing behavioural and psychosocial risk factors, as well as being advocates for public policy that takes a HiAP approach.
Increasingly, governments around the world are recognising the benefits of taking account of HiAP.
HiAP is an approach to policy-making that places ‘health’ as a key decision-making factor in all areas of policy, by systematically taking into account the health and health-system implications of policy decisions, by seeking synergies between policy portfolios, and by avoiding harmful health impacts, in order to improve population health and health equity.
World Health Organization (WHO) (2013), Health in All Policies: Framework for Country Action, p.2
The development of the RACP’s Health in All Policies Position Statement has been driven by two core principles:
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Illness and disease are exacerbated by and distributed in direct relationship to inequities in society. SDoH are often responsible for health inequities – the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen between individuals; and
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Addressing the SDoH will reduce the burden of avoidable disease and associated health expenditure, support healthier decisions and lifestyles, and improve economic growth and development.
Read the RACP Health in All Policies Position Statement (PDF 919KB).
Climate Change and Health
AFPHM Fellows are instrumental in the work of the RACP on Climate Change and Health. To find out more about this ongoing work and access the RACP’s latest position statements on this issue, please refer to our
Climate Change and Health webpage.
Recent submissions, position statements and media section
Public Health Physicians: Protecting, Promoting and Improving Health for the Whole Community (PDF 246KB)
Inquiry into the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018 (PDF 164KB)
RACP Submission to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the provision of drug rehabilitation services in regional, rural and remote New South Wales (PDF 144KB)
Submission to the Department of Health’s Expert Health Panel for Per- and Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) (PDF 121KB)
RACP Submission - Victorian Parliament Inquiry into the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pilot Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2017 (PDF 82KB)
RACP Submission - Victorian Parliament Law Reform, Road and Community Safety Committee Inquiry into Drug Law Reform (PDF 116KB)
Submission to Senate Inquiry into the “growing evidence of an emerging tick-borne disease that causes a Lyme-like illness for many Australian patients” (PDF 418KB)
RACP Submission - NSW Health 2016 Statutory Review of Part 2A of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (PDF 80KB)
Submission to the Statutory Review of the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW) (PDF 113KB)
RACP submission letter: NSW Draft Smoke-free Environment Regulation 2016 (PDF 131KB)
RACP submission to the ACT Government’s community consultation on smoke-free playgrounds (PDF 107KB)
RACP submission to the Victorian to the Tobacco Amendment Bill 2016 (PDF 110KB)