What is a healthy life?
Did you read about Ben Cousins, the former captain of the West Coast Eagles AFL team? To many of us he seemed the ultimate in health.
He has the remarkable capacity to run over 20 kilometres, then sprint and leap for a match winning mark. He won a Brownlow medal, the ultimate individual award in his sport, and was a premiership captain of his team. Yet, the media has reported he uses various illicit drugs, his long-term relationship with his partner has ended, and his football career is suspended indefinitely. Health seems to be more than just physical capacity.
In Australia we spend ever more money on health care, yet Australian children are worse off now on many health indicators (such as rates of child obesity and depression) than they were a generation ago. Most adults report a chronic struggle to juggle work and family commitments; family breakdown and domestic violence are pervasive social problems; mental health and drug problems remain persistent; we have a high national suicide rate; and the health of Indigenous people is as bad as in the world's poorest countries. Our ever-increasing national wealth provides the trappings of affluence such as plasma TVs and 3G phones, but Australians rate their well-being as unimproved relative to a generation ago.
In a series of studies with colleagues, I developed and evaluated couple and family education programs to assist people manage life challenges such as becoming parents and diagnosis and management of serious illness such as psychosis, diabetes and cancer. Collectively this work convinced me that a healthy life is more than just an individual choice.
For people to lead healthy lives they need family and friends who have the time, knowledge and desire to nurture them. I also have come to appreciate how families are limited by whether their broader environment promotes healthy living. For example, achieving work/family balance is helped by good social policy and family-friendly employment as well as individual and family actions.
The Griffith Institute of Health and Medical Research has been established to do multi-disciplinary research that empowers communities of people to lead healthy lives. It undertakes such research as the Griffith Study of Population Health which began this year. This program examines the complex interplay of the physical and social environment, family and individual lifestyles, physiology and genetics that influence major national health challenges like childhood obesity, injury, cancer, mental health problems and substance abuse. The institute's evolving research seeks to promote better health for us all.
Kim Halford is director of the Griffith Institute of Health and Medical Research and Dean (Research) of the Health Group.