VicHealth history: major events and milestones

2010

• Food for All, VicHealth’s 5-year $5-million food security program concludes.
• The Victorian Parliament passes the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2010.
• The most comprehensive evaluation of health prevention measures ever conducted worldwide, involving input from 130 top health experts, is released (ACE-Prevention project).
• Research undertaken by VicHealth for the Commonwealth Government delivers the first national report card on the status of community attitudes to violence against women since 1995.
• A report by the University of Melbourne and VicHealth reveals that excessive pressure at work is costing Australia’s economy $730 million a year due to job-stress related depression.
• Findings from the first comprehensive survey of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual sport experiences in Australia are released. 

2009

• VicHealth invests in the creation of VictoriaWalks, which leads the move to create walking-friendly neighbourhoods.
• VicHealth publishes a ground-breaking report, The health and economic benefits of reducing disease factors, providing a wealth of information on realistic targets for reducing risk factors.
• A VicHealth-funded survey finds that Victorians support mandatory consumer information labels on all alcohol products.
• VicHealth announces an extra investment of $1.5 million to further reduce tobacco-related harms in Victoria, bringing the total VicHealth investment in tobacco control to $19 million over the next four years.

2008

• VicHealth hosts the 2008 World Conference on the Promotion of Mental Health in Melbourne.
• Streets Ahead program begins, supporting and motivating people, especially children, to get active in their neighbourhoods.
• VicHealth and the Australian Institute of Health Policy Studies (AIHPS) host the first national illness prevention summit in Melbourne, attracting the Federal and Victorian Ministers for Health and over 100 of Australia's leaders.
• A VicHealth study finds that women employed in casual and contract jobs are 10 times more likely to experience unwanted sexual advances than those in permanent full-time positions. 

2007

• VicHealth supports a State Government ban on the sale of alcopop tubes.
• Data from the VicHealth-funded Community Indicators Victoria project is released, providing a concrete focus for local governments to engage local citizens and strengthen communities.
• VicHealth creates the Victorian Health Inequalities Network to encourage public dialogue about the development of coherent strategies to reduce inequalities.
• More than 56,000 Victorian children participate in Walktober Walk to School, which aims to get walking or cycling on the daily agenda of families.
• VicHealth delivers to the Victorian Government a comprehensive new framework for action in preventing violence against women.  

2006

• Smoking is banned in most enclosed workplaces and new graphic health warnings are introduced on tobacco packaging.
• VicHealth runs a 10,000 Steps Walking Challenge during the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, the largest of its kind to date in Victoria.
• More than 1600 clubs participate in the Australian Drug Foundation’s Good Sports program,  an initiative supported by VicHealth designed to change the booze culture that exists in many sporting clubs.
• VicHealth establishes a partnership with the AFL to advance violence prevention activity through sport.

 2005

• Smoking rates drop below 17% of Victoria’s adult population (from 31.5% in 1986).
• Quit celebrates its 20th anniversary as an anti-smoking campaign.
• More than 2000 Victorian primary school children from 192 schools walk to and from school as part of VicHealth’s Walking School Bus Program.

2004

• Health 2004: The World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education takes place in Melbourne. It attracts over 2000 delegates in 4 days.
• The Health Costs of Violence shows the extent of intimate partner violence and its enormous impact on women’s mental health and wellbeing.
• Food Security Demonstration Projects from City of Yarra and City of Maribyrnong win Victorian Public Health Awards for Excellence and Innovation.

2003

• VicHealth launches Leading the Way: Councils creating healthier communities, a resource to better equip councils to identify and respond to the built, social, economic and environmental issues that affect health and wellbeing in communities.
• VicHealth funds five new fellowships and six new scholarships; the organisation now fully funds or supports 55 fellows and scholars.

2002

• Walking School Bus Program commences in four local councils; 14 primary schools and 224 children participate.
• VicHealth joins forces with education, adolescent and welfare organisations to highlight bullying behaviour as a significant mental health issue.
• Launch of Out of School Hours Sports Program to increase physical activity of primary school aged children.

2001

• Sport program redevelopment announced: shift from sponsorship model to increasing participation in physical activity through the Promoting Health through Sport and Active Recreation Program.
• Introduction of smokefree dining in Victoria.
• Launch of Together We Do Better campaign promoting mental health and wellbeing.
• Food Security Program begins, aimed at giving people in disadvantaged communities better access to fresh foods.
• Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) established.

2000

• The VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control opens, focusing on legal, economic and social research to strengthen tobacco control initiatives.
• VicHealth begins funding the Cochrane Health Promotion and Public Health Field to establish it in Australia and support the field’s local and international activities.
• New Arts for Health Program funding begins, with a focus on participation and access.
• Government of Victoria amends its Tobacco Act to introduce smokefree dining, bans on point-of-sale advertising, and increased penalties for retailers who sell to minors.

1999

• VicHealth’s Strategic Directions 1999–2002 focuses on physical activity, healthy eating, substance misuse, tobacco control and mental health and wellbeing.
• VicHealth launches Mental Health Promotion Plan for Victoria, focusing on social connection, freedom from discrimination and economic participation as major factors impacting on mental health.
• Victorian Public Health Research and Education Council (VPHREC) launched.
• International Network of Health Promotion Foundations established. 
  
  

1998

• Removal of sponsorship from Carlton Football Club after continuing breaches of sponsorship agreement by their chairman, John Elliott.
• Launch of VicHealth’s indigenous research centre: the Koori Health Research and Community Development Unit. 
   

1997

• Australian High Court invalidates state tobacco fees, which ends tobacco-fee funding for VicHealth; funding from state budget commences.
• Federal Government and Quit agencies in the states and territories develop the National Tobacco Campaign. The campaign includes graphic TV ads depicting the health effects of smoking. A national Quitline is introduced.
• Foundation SA disbanded.
• Austrian Health Promotion Foundation established.

1996

• The work of VicHealth in promoting health is recognised when the World Health Organisation Medal for Excellence is presented to the Premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett.
• Active for Life launched in schools to teach children about making exercise a healthy lifetime habit to prevent heart disease.
• VicHealth-sponsored sporting organisations are encouraged to promote smokefree environments with healthy food options and sun shade.
• Health Promotion Switzerland established.

1995

• New Strategic Plan (Healthy Victoria to the Year 2000) launched; the emphasis is on knowledge transfer.
• VicHealth launches Healthy Families of the Future, a program to improve mental health and wellbeing within families.
• Completion of tobacco sponsorship replacement program.

1994

• World Health Organisation calls for other countries to adopt the VicHealth model.
• VicHealth holds its first national conference to examine the pioneering developments of working with sport and art organisations to promote health.
• VicHealth funds research arm of the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre, a program which will increase capacity to intervene and prevent youth suicide. 
  
  

1993

• Launch of the State Government’s Cancer and Heart Offensive, aimed at cutting the numbers of people dying prematurely from Victoria's two biggest killers.
• Of Australia’s top private companies based in Victoria, 75% now totally smokefree (an increase of 25% in one year).
• Launch of Partnerships with Healthy Industry – health promotion in the workplace. 
  
  

1992

• Federal Government bans tobacco sponsorships and most remaining forms of advertising from 1995.
• Centre for the Study of Sexually Transmitted Diseases established; later changed to Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS).
• Publication of A Considerable Success – an evaluation of VicHealth’s first 5 years from an economic perspective, by Dr Neville Norman of the University of Melbourne.

1991

• Healthway (the Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation) established under the Tobacco Control Act 1990.
• Centre for the Study of Mothers’ and Children’s Health (later renamed Centre for Mother and Child Health Research) established.
• Centre for the Study of Adolescent Health (later renamed Centre for Adolescent Health) established.
• Prevalence of smoking in Victoria from 1986 to1991 declines at the rate of 1% per year, from 31.5% to 25.6%.

1990

• A ban is placed on all tobacco advertising in Victorian print media.
• Victorian Arts Centre becomes completely smokefree.
• First community-based cervical screening program established.

1989

• Tobacco billboard advertising replaced.
• Food and Nutrition Program established.
• Healthy Localities project brings local government, community agencies and residents together to identify priority health issues and implement local health promotion strategies.
• VicHealth funds significant research into Alzheimer’s disease at the Mental Health Research Institute.
• ACT Health Promotion Fund (changed to Healthpact in 1995) established.

1988

• VicHealth moves to buy out tobacco company sponsorship of sport and the arts; Quit, Heart Health and other health promotion programs replace the tobacco sponsorships.
• The Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria (now the Cancer Council Victoria) receives funding from VicHealth to run its SunSmart and Quit programs.
• Foundation SA (the South Australian health promotion foundation, later renamed Living Health) established.
• VicHealth funds first Victorian breast cancer screening program. 
   

1987

• Victorian Tobacco Act 1987 passed in Parliament.
• The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) established with funding from government-collected tobacco taxes and mandated to promote health in the State of Victoria.