This report from a number of leading health experts recommends major improvements to primary healthcare services in Australia to stop people with serious mental illnesses from dying between 14 and 23 years earlier than other Australians.

This report card looks at the health of adult Australians by socioeconomic status in relation to preventable chronic diseases, the major risk factors for chronic diseases and premature deaths from those diseases and suicide.

Australia’s Health Tracker 2019 continues the work of a national collaboration of public health and chronic disease organisations and experts that began in 2015 and produced health targets to support, guide and track progress towards a substantial change in the health of our nation. This report card is the second edition reporting against those targets.

This issues paper highlights the complexity and dysfunction of the current health system in Australia and aims to bring attention to the considerable agreement across national health reviews over the past 35 years.

This report is the work of a national collaboration of leading experts, researchers and practitioners working in health, education, transport, public health and policy. It outlines a national implementation strategy for an ongoing commitment to the Australian Health Survey.