Policies

Women’s Health Policy 2010

The Government’s National Women’s Health Policy 2010 aims to continue to improve the health and wellbeing of all women in Australia, especially those at greatest risk for poor health.

The policy recognises the solid foundation of the first National Women’s Health Policy: Advancing Women’s Health in Australia which was released in 1989. It continues the commitment to building an environment where more can be done to ensure that all Australian women have better health and health care.

The policy adopts a dual priority approach that recognises the importance of addressing immediate and future health challenges while also addressing the fundamental ways in which society is structured that impacts on women’s health and wellbeing. It reflects the equal priorities of:

Maintaining and developing health services and prevention programs to treat and avoid disease through targeting health issues that will have the greatest impact over the next two decades; and

Aiming to address health inequities through broader reforms addressing the social determinants of health.

The policy can be found at:

Women’s Health Policy 1989

Developing a National Women’s Health Policy became a major focus for the first time in Australia in September 1985, at the second national conference ‘Women’s Health in a Changing Society’ which was held in Adelaide. The conference, attended by over 700 women, resolved that such a policy be develop, ‘based on a clear recognition of the position of women in society and … the way this affects their health status and their access to health services appropriate to their needs’.

To read more about Womens Health, click here.