How much does Australia spend on prevention and how would we know whether it is enough?

Chronic disease is responsible for 83% of all premature deaths in Australia and 85% of the burden of disease. Conditions such as cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes impose significant costs on the healthcare system and yet are also largely preventable. This raises questions about whether Australia is doing enough to prevent disease and in particular, whether governments should be spending more.

Here, we summarise what is known about how much Australian governments spend on prevention, and we compare this with spending in other OECD countries. We then consider arguments about whether we spend enough.