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WELCOME TO HEALTH ISSUES CENTRE

Delegates at the 2009 Participate in Health Conference Health Issues Centre is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that began in 1985 to promote equity and consumer perspectives in the Australian health system. Our mission is to improve the health outcomes for Australians, especially those who are disadvantaged. The focus of Health Issues Centre's work is mainly in Victoria but we take a national approach where appropriate. We work with a wide range of consumers, health providers, researchers, governments and other health organisations to achieve this through:

  • policy analysis and advocacy from consumer and equity perspectives
  • consumer-focused research
  • promoting and supporting consumer participation
  • disseminating information.


 Health Issues Centre's Annual Report 2008 - 2009
Strategic Plan 2008-2010


Feature Resource - Chronic Illness Best Practice Framework

This best practice framework aims to set out some of the guiding principles behind development and operation of peer support programs. Whilst the overall goals of peer support programs are generally similar, programs can vary significantly in design. In some of these peer support arrangements, there is no clear division between those receiving support and those providing it – the focus is one of informal mutual support by sharing knowledge and experience. In other cases, those providing support have been selected and trained and have a distinctly different role to those being supported. In the latter case, whilst all those involved are peers, in that they experience the same condition, we have called those providing support “volunteers” and those being supported “peers”.

Best Practice Framework