According to a new health tracker for 2016 out of a chosen 100 people from Young 17 drink at what is considered to be ‘risky’ levels, and 21 are classed as a smoker based on 2011 data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The tracker data released by the Australian Health Policy Collaboration last week aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the health of Australians in relation to chronic diseases and their risk factors.
But the big question is, how does Young measure up against the rest of the region?
Young sits just behind the Cowra Shire area with results revealing to each 100 people 23 would be smokers and 18 would drink at risky levels.
Boorowa’s results are closer to Young’s yet again with out of 100 people from Boorowa 18 would drink at a risky level and 20 would be smokers.
Parkes edged just ahead of Young in both areas with 18 of the 100 people considered to drink at a risky level and 22 of the 100 considered to be smokers.
When you pull 100 people out of the Forbes area an increased 19 are considered risky drinkers and alike Cowra, 23 are smokers.
If there was a group of 100 people that were taken from Cabonne Shire 19 would be termed as risky drinkers and 18 would be considered smokers and Weddin Shire would be split evenly with 20 people out of 100 being smokers and 20 out of the100 considered to be risky drinkers.
For the function of the report the indicator for a person to be considered at risk of long-term risky drinking was a person (aged 15 plus years) reporting an average alcohol consumption of more than two standard drinks per day over the past year.
The indicator for those at risk of health issues in relation to smoking were based on self-reported data, reported to interviewers.
For the purpose of the report a current smoker is an adult who reported at the time of the interview that they smoked manufactured (packet) cigarettes, roll-your-own cigarettes, cigars, and or pipes at least once per week, however the report excluded chewing tobacco and smoking of non-tobacco products.
The data concluded that the best way to reduce the levels of harmful drinking was to focus new policies on the price, physical availability and promotion of alcohol.
It also concluded that though smoking rates had decreased, the tobacco industry, lobbyists and industry supporters would continue to be significantly disruptive to tobacco control efforts and that the next step in tobacco use reduction should be in regulation on the contents of tobacco products including regulatory controls on product ingredients, measuring, testing and reporting on the contents and emissions of tobacco products.
