Health policy

A group of senior people standing outside in a park, arms over each others' shoulders.
Our health policy team has a strong focus on chronic disease prevention and systemic improvements for Australia’s health system.

Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular health, dementia and diabetes have major long-term impacts on individuals, their families and their communities. 

The growing burden of chronic disease in Australia threatens to overwhelm the health budget, the capacity of health services and the health workforce. More than one-third of that burden is preventable or can be reduced through effective, evidence-based changes to policy.

Our work is guided by preventive health targets and indicators developed by the Australian Health Policy Collaboration and endorsed by more than 50 of Australia’s leading health organisations.

Recent publications

National Consumer Engagement Strategy for Health & Wellbeing

Over the course of 2022—2024, the AHPC, in partnership with the Consumer Health Forum of Australia (CHF) and 89 Degrees East, led the development of the Australian Government’s National Consumer Engagement Strategy for Health and Wellbeing.

Publicly released in October 2025, the Strategy and its companion resource, the Health Engagement Learning Platform (HELP) Toolkit, aim to strengthen partnerships between policymakers and consumers at every stage of the policy cycle. Together, they provide a national framework to guide and support consistent, good practice consumer engagement in health policymaking across Australia.

Getting Australia's health on track