Chronic conditions: health professionals

Responsibilities

The Preventive Health Strategy Unit is responsible for:

• policy leadership for prevention
• delivering key initiatives with regards to chronic conditions and domestic and family violence, with a focus on prevention and population health
• supporting system reform for improved population health outcomes.

What we do

The Preventive Health Strategy Unit drives a system-wide approach to prevention to improve the health and wellbeing of Territorians and reduce the burden of disease and injury.

This includes developing and implementing contemporary population health policies and approaches to meet identified needs, including for chronic conditions and domestic and family violence.

The team takes a collaborative approach, working with stakeholders across the department and with government agencies, sector partners and communities to create social and physical environments that support good health and wellbeing.

What does that mean

• The Preventive Health Strategy Unit provide policy leadership for prevention within NT Health.
• The team focus on addressing key risk factors for chronic preventable disease, including unhealthy food and drink, physical inactivity, food insecurity and obesity. The team also work to strengthen the Northern Territory’s response to domestic and family violence, including identifying opportunities to prevent violence before it occurs and play a role in gendered health issues as they arise.
• This is achieved by focusing on population approaches that target whole populations, communities and settings - such as schools, workplaces and retail environments - as well as by better embedding prevention activity within the health care system.
• Improving health literacy to support better health outcomes, particularly for populations experiencing vulnerability and priority populations, is within the team’s remit.
• Our goal is to keep people as healthy and well as possible for as long as possible to reduce the burden of disease and injury on our population and our health system.

Publications

• Screening and management pathways for type 2 diabetes in Aboriginal young people in NT PDF (393.3 KB)
• Type 2 diabetes in young people fact sheet PDF (683.7 KB)
• NT Health promotion framework
• NT Healthy workplace toolkit