Australia's Health

Question 1

Life expectancy

Answer 1

Life expectancy is one of the most common methods used to measure health status. It gives an indication of how long a person is expected to live.

Question 2

Burden of disease

Answer 2

A measure of the impact of diseases and injuries; specifically it measures the gap between health status and an ideal situation where everyone lives to an old age free of disease and disability. It is measured in DALY.

Question 3

INcidence

Answer 3

Incidence refers to the number (or rate) of new cases of a disease/ condition in a population during a given period.

Question 4

Prevalence

Answer 4

The number of proportion of cases of a particular disease or condition present in a population at a given time.

Question 5

Mortality

Answer 5

Mortality refers to the deaths in a population. The mortality rate is therefore an indication of how many deaths occurred in a population in a given period of time for a specific cause.

Question 6

Morbidity

Answer 6

Morbidity refers to ill-health in an individual or levels of ill-health in a population.

Question 7

DALYs

Answer 7

A measure of the loss of healthy life as a result of non-fatal health conditions, illness, injury or premature death.

Question 8

Health status

Answer 8

An individual’s or population’s overall health, taking into account various aspects such as life expectancy, amount of disability and levels of disease risk factors.