Have Australia’s policy makers failed to address a major public health problem? Alex Collie of Monash University presents a recent disability study.

• Professor Alex Collie is Director of the Insurance Work and Health Research Group in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Alex is an applied public health and social policy researcher, with a specific focus on injury, illness and disability benefit systems and their impact on work, social and health outcomes at an individual and population level.

Australia spends an estimated $37.2 billion on income support for work disability annually, through a complex system of private, state/territory and commonwealth government insurance schemes. Alex Collie of Monash University will present the findings of a recent study for the Australian government which mapped the nation’s income support systems for people with work disability, including prevalence and expenditure estimates, analysis of service provision, and identification of policy, practice and research opportunities. He will pose the question: “Have Australia’s policy makers failed to address a major public health problem?”