Queenslanders are living about 10 years longer than they were half a century ago despite being more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than Australians as a whole, the latest chief health officer's report says.
In his first biennial report on the health of Queenslanders, Dr John Gerrard said the state's median age at death had jumped from 70.4 years in 1971 to 80.7 in 2021.
The snapshot also identifies confronting data about rates of self-harm, particularly among adolescent girls, and increasing suicide rates among Indigenous Queenslanders.
Heart disease was the leading cause of death followed by dementia, cerebrovascular disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, colorectal cancer, diabetes, and suicide.
The increase in life expectancy – which does not take in last year's COVID-19 deaths — comes off the back of drops in Queensland cigarette smoking, but Dr Gerrard said vaping had emerged "suddenly" as a new lifestyle related health threat that urgently needed to be curtailed.
A 2022 Queensland preventative health survey suggests almost one in five adults in the state have tried an e-cigarette at some stage and 14.5 per cent of 18-to-29-year-olds "currently vape".
"We must not repeat the mistakes made a century ago when the first of several generations became addicted to tobacco," Dr Gerrard wrote in the forward to the report.
In an interview with the ABC, the Chief Health Officer said he was concerned about new generations of Queenslanders becoming addicted to nicotine through vaping.
"The most pressing need is to do whatever we can to stop children getting addicted to nicotine," he said.
"But there's also the uncertain damage caused by unknown chemicals in these products to which the delicate tissues of the lung are exposed.
"The long term effect is still not known."
Cancer more prevalent in Queensland
Studies show Queenslanders are failing to heed preventative health messages.
In 2020, a survey revealed almost half of Queensland adults reported being sunburnt in the previous year.
"From 2010 to 2020, there was no significant change in the percentage of adult Queenslanders who had been sunburnt in the previous 12 months," the report said.
It found higher rates of melanoma – a deadly type of skin cancer — were the main driver in Queensland's cancer incidence being worse than Australia as a whole across three decades.
"In 2018, the standardised incidence rate for all cancers was 10 per cent higher in Queensland [542 per 100,000 persons … compared to 493.9 per 100,000 for Australia]," it said.
"Melanoma of the skin is strongly associated with ultraviolet (UV) light. The Queensland UV index is three or above year-round, which is high enough to cause skin damage after only 10 minutes of exposure."
Dr Gerrard said work was underway inside Queensland Health to reinvigorate the sun safe message.
"We really need that," he told the ABC.
"It's really dropped off in the last couple of decades."
In 2020, 32,547 new cancer cases were reported to the Queensland Cancer Registry, including 4,902 prostate cancers, 4,189 melanomas of the skin, 3,790 breast cancers, 3,113 bowel cancers, 3,006 lung cancers, 801 pancreatic cancers and 262 cervical cancers.
"Prostate cancer, melanoma of the skin and breast cancer generally increased from 1982 to 2018," Dr Gerrard's report said.
"Nationally, standardised incidence rates of pancreatic cancer have been increasing since 2002."
Queenslanders' diets remain a concern with a recent survey indicating just 7.4 per cent of adults and 2.8 per cent of children meeting the recommended daily vegetable consumption.
"From 2004 to 2021, the percentage of adults consuming five or more serves of vegetables daily decreased by 19.5 per cent," the report said.
Suicide on the rise
Alarmingly, it identified a three-fold increase in rates of hospitalisations for self-harm in girls aged up to 14 years, catapulting from 19.1 admissions per 100,000 people in 2008-09 to 70.5 per 100,000 people in 2020-21.
Rates doubled in girls aged between 15-19 during the same period from 373.6 hospital admissions per 100,000 people to 697.7 per 100,000 people.
"Queensland self-harm hospitalisation rates were almost 60 per cent higher than national rates in 2020-21 (crude rate per 100,000 persons 183.1 and 116.3 respectively)," the report said.
Dr Gerrard said news about the health of Queensland's First Nations' peoples was mixed.
"Secondary school completion rates have risen significantly," he said.
"Standardised death rates from ischaemic heart disease and diabetes have fallen.
"But the rate of suicide in First Nations peoples in Queensland continues to rise. The health of First Nations peoples must remain a central focus for all of us."
In 2021, 26 per cent of national suicide deaths occurred in Queensland – 813 of the 3,144 national figure.
Age-standardised suicide rates among Indigenous Queenslanders rose from 22.8 per 100,000 people in 2012-2016 to 28.1 per 100,000 in 2017-2021.
Nationally in 2021, suicide rates across the population were 2.4 times higher in very remote areas than in major cities.
Dr Gerrard's wide-ranging report identified 7,249 hospitalisations due to dental decay in Queensland in 2020-21, more than half of them in children aged up to nine years.
