Health expert has been charged with devising a strategy to reduce the financial toll of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced the establishment of the taskforce _ to be led by the professor of global health at the Nossal Institute of Global Health, Dr Rob Moodie _ as she released a report showing that in 2004-2005, the social cost of alcohol, tobacco use and illicit drugs was about $56 billion.Ms Roxon described the figures as "staggering''.
"That's an enormous amount of money and that's not just the health cost to individuals or to the health system, it's also the flow-on costs in terms of crime, lost productivity at work, people taking time off to care for others,'' she said.
"So it's a very detailed analysis and a reminder to us of why it's so important to focus on prevention.''
The taskforce has been charged with developing a National Preventative Health Strategy by June 2009, with a focus on tobacco, alcohol and obesity.
It will also provide interim recommendations to be included in the Australian Health Care Agreements between the commonwealth, states and territories in July this year.
Ms Roxon said Australia needed a long-term strategy to ease the cost on communities.
She said the time was ripe for a new approach.
"I think the time is right for there to be a real shift in community thinking about the way we handle some of our health problems,'' she said. "Health problems are not just about fixing hospitals, we actually have to fix some of the things that mean people end up in hospital.''
The Rudd Government has committed $68 million to programs to cut binge drinking by young people and smoking by indigenous Australians.
But while Treasury has been asked to report on the economic benefits of the focus on disease prevention, the Government's threat of a razor gang budget next month means funding for other initiatives is likely to be pushed out for another year.
The commonwealth spent almost $43 billion on health in 2007-08, about 18 per cent of its total expenditure.
But that pales next to the estimates detailed in the report Costs of Tobacco, Alcohol and Illicit Drug Abuse, prepared by David Collins of Macquarie University and Helen Lapsley of the universities of Queensland and NSW.
Cigarettes accounted for more than half the annual costs to the community in 2004-05, at $31.5 billion, including $15.5 billion in lost productivity.
Alcohol was the next biggest offender, racking up a bill of $15.3 billion, including $3.5 billion in lost productivity and $3.1billion in road accidents.
Illicit drug use had an $8.2billion toll, with almost half the costs due to crime.