"The next health funding deal between the federal government and the states should include funding for prevention that increases over time. Australia’s last national prevention funding agreement was scrapped almost a decade ago and never replaced...

"Predictably, avoidable diseases and risk factors have kept rising in the meantime. Balancing budgets is important and difficult, but prevention is one of the last places to look for savings....

"Every year that we fail to get serious about funding prevention we lock in more disease, disability, and death in decades to come. Health is one of our fastest growing costs, and it’s ultimately our biggest asset...