Government spending on preventive health and promotion jumped by 21 per cent during the 2007-08 financial year, driven by the roll out of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination program to fight cervical cancer.
Analysis released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that public health spending by state and federal governments grew by $444 million in 2007-08, amounting to $2.2 billion or $102 per person.
The growth was largely due to an increase in spending on organised immunisations, which rose to 32.6 per cent of total government public health spending in 2007-08 from 25.4 per cent the previous year and amounted to $704.3 million.
According to AIHW principal economist John Goss, the bulk of that increase was driven by the implementation of the national HPV vaccination program and its initial catch-up phase for women aged between 12 and 26 years.
"The national HPV program included an additional $235 million of Australian Government funding for [the] HPV vaccine," Mr Goss said.
"This was responsible for 53 per cent of the $444 million increase in total public health expenditure."
Spending on public health measures has jumped 77.7 per cent since 1999-2000 – an average increase of 7.4 per cent a year.
"The relatively large growth in public health expenditure in 2007-08 meant that public health expenditure as a proportion of total recurrent health expenditure was 2.2 per cent in 2007–08, after being 1.8-1.9 per cent for the previous eight years," Mr Gross said.
Public health spending was still a small part of total government health spending, however, compared to 39.4 per cent spent on hospitals and 14 per cent spent on medications in 2007-08, AIHW found.
Communicable disease control, which involves needle and syringe programs run in many states through pharmacies, fell as a proportion of total governmental public health spending – from 14.8 per cent in 2006-07 to 11.9 in 2007-08 – even though the total amount rose by $2.5 million to $256.7 million.
Screening programs and the prevention of hazardous and harmful drug use saw a boost in funding in 2007-08 but also fell slightly as a proportion of total public health funding.