Identifying Priority Health Issues

Social Justice Principles:

Social justice is a concept that in general refer to human rights. The concept of social justice is centred around:

Helping groups improve their lives who are otherwise overlooked upon due to discriminative, racial, ethnical and sexist mindsets.
Ensuring all groups of people regardless of their race, ethnicity and religion get equal healthcare services.
Promoting diversity inclusion and making sure all Australians receive supportive environments.

Priority Population Groups:

In regards to public health, the aim of creating priority population groups is to identify:
- Which disease or disorder is significantly prevalent
- Which cohort can be classified in different risk groups
- Measuring the weightage of that disease as a public health concern

Prevalence of Condition:

Prevalence is represented based on the number of cases or proportion of a particular population, who have been found to affected by a clinical condition or risk factor at a particular time.
Prevalence of condition(s) is obtained by analysing the total number of people who have been diagnosed with a certain condition against a study sample.
Prevalence is expressed as a fraction, a percentage, or the number of cases per 10,000 or 100,000 people.

Potential for prevention and early intervention:

Potential for Prevention:

The prevention phase of disease management involves implementation of various strategies, policies and programmes for disease prevention
Policies are implemented on a national or community level to prevent or subjugate clinical and behavioural health issues.

Early Intervention:

Early intervention refers to the swift management of diagnosed cases
Protocols are undertaken in terms of treatment and therapeutic measures for containing the prognosis of a disease to a more severe stage.

Costs to the Individual and Community:

Costs to the individual and community is the scrutinization of the economic aspects of a disease on an individual. Costs to the individual are measured in terms of:
- Financial loss
- Productivity loss
- Substandard quality of life
- Emotional strain
Costs to the individual and community can be of two types:
- Direct Costs:
  - All costs which are spent in direct relation to a disease or health condition.
  - Generally, the healthcare system bears this cost type.
- Indirect Costs:
  - Relates to productivity loss, loss of employment, insurance etc.