Overview

Chronic diseases are long lasting conditions with persistent effects. Their social and economic consequences can impact on peoples’ quality of life. Chronic conditions are becoming increasingly common and are a priority for action in the health sector. Many people with chronic conditions do not have a single, predominant condition, but rather they experience multimorbidity – the presence of 2 or more chronic conditions in a person at the same time.

AIHW commonly reports on 10 major chronic condition groups: arthritis, asthma, back pain, cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, mental health conditions and osteoporosis.

These chronic conditions were selected for reporting because they are common, pose significant health problems, have been the focus of ongoing AIHW surveillance efforts and, in many instances, action can be taken to prevent their occurrence.

Australian Centre for Monitoring Population Health

Latest data and information on the health of Australians

Featured reports

Latest findings

Around 5–10% of COVID-19 cases in Australia reported symptoms persisting for more than 3 months

Key risk factors include severe COVID-19 illness, comorbidities, female sex and mid-adult age groups

Up to September 2022, most long COVID research has been conducted outside of Australia, often using pre-Omicron data

In 2019, over 2.4 million patients claimed around 8.2 million Medicare-subsidised individual allied health services

More than 3.8 million Australians had a Chronic Disease Management service in 2019

In 2019, the most used Medicare-subsidised individual allied health services were podiatry, physiotherapy, and dietetics

The AIHW manages the National Centre for Monitoring Chronic Conditions (NCMCC) to provide a ‘bigger picture’ of chronic conditions in Australia.

More reports and statistics on chronic disease can be found under Burden of disease, Biomedical risk factors and Life expectancy & deaths.