In this month’s release: The health of the nation and the latest data on food insecurities in Australian households.

Forthcoming releases

If you are interested in any of the forthcoming releases or datasets, please contact the Parliamentary Library to discuss in more detail.

(a) Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) Note: Release dates may be subject to change without notice.

After the latest key economic statistics? Visit the Parliamentary Library’s Key Economic and Social Indicators Dashboard (KESI).

Recent reports

National Health Survey, 2022 (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

The 2022 National Health Survey (NHS) identified that 8 in 10 Australians (81.4%) had at least one long-term health condition, and half (49.9%) had at least 1 selected chronic condition.

• Long-term health conditions are specified as being current at the time of the survey interview and had lasted, or were expected to last, for 6 months or more.
• Chronic conditions are a subset of long-term health conditions that are common, pose significant health problems, or have been a focus of ongoing public health surveillance. The most prevalent chronic conditions were:
  • Mental and behavioural conditions: 26.1%
  • Back problems: 15.7%
  • Arthritis: 14.5%
  • Asthma: 10.8%
  • Diabetes: 5.3%
  • Heart, stroke and vascular disease: 5.2%
  • Osteoporosis: 3.4%
  • Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): 2.5%
  • Cancer: 1.8%
  • Kidney disease: 1.0%.

Tobacco smoking is one of the largest preventable causes of death and disease in Australia. Smoking is estimated to kill almost 20,500 Australians a year (13% of all deaths) and was responsible for 8.6% of the total burden of disease in Australia in 2018. According to the survey results:

• 1 in 10 adults aged 18 years and over were current daily smokers in 2022. This rate has steadily more than halved from 22.4% in 2001.
• 1 in 7 (14.4%) adults have used e-cigarette or vaping devices.

Foodbank Hunger Report, 2023

This report presents key findings from research conducted in July 2023, through an online survey of 4,342 Australian adults. It identified that:

• In the past year, 3.7 million Australian households (36%) experienced moderate to severe food insecurity. At the very least this represents a reduction in the quality, variety or desirability of their food, and at worst eating patterns are disrupted.
• This is a 3% increase in the general population, the equivalent of 383,000 more households than in 2022.
• More than 2.3 million households (23%) fall into the category of severely `food insecure’. This means they are actively reducing their food intake, skipping meals or going entire days without eating.
• Compared to 2022, the first-time food insecure households are increasingly metropolitan (up 4%), middle-income (up 7%), employed (up 5%), mortgage-holding (up 6%) and renting (up 5%). There was also a significant increase in food insecurity amongst households without children (up 6%).
• 79% of food insecure households reported the rising cost-of-living as the biggest reason for their hardship. This is up significantly from 64% in 2022.

Interested in finding out what the latest statistics are telling us about the Australian economy and population? Each month the Parliamentary Library publishes a Flagpost article listing new reports on a wide variety of topics. The list includes important upcoming ABS releases and reports from other research organisations and government departments.