ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the major diseases and risk factors that are influencing health and illness in the 21st century with a view to informing health promotion action. It also briefly describes how research can be employed judiciously to assist health promotion professionals to grapple with this complexity, and therefore aid in the development and implementation of effective health promotion strategies. Chronic diseases therefore represent a large cost to Australian society, and indeed threaten to overwhelm a health system that was designed primarily for the provision of episodic care of infectious disease rather than long-term management of illnesses. Long-term disease and disability can be addressed by tertiary prevention, which aims to reduce the consequences of diseases. Prevention efforts, including health promotion interventions that target the risk factors for the leading causes of disease burden. The chapter explores the notions further and facilitates an understanding of what constitutes good contemporary health promotion practice in tackling these great public health challenges.
