A string of suburbs along Melbourne’s leafy eastern fringe are among the healthiest places to live in Victoria, according to public health researchers.
Belgrave, Olinda and Emerald have all been given a perfect score of 100 under a new rating system that combines factors such as air quality, access to green spaces and variances in temperature – all of which can impact a person’s health.
Mount Eliza, Rosebud and Flinders along the Mornington Peninsula also received the highest possible health index rating.
Beyond Greater Melbourne, the top-rated places tend to sit on the Bellarine Peninsula, close to the Great Ocean Road or in pockets of Gippsland.
In total, 36 of Victoria’s more than 400 places received a perfect score of 100 on the new Environmental Quality Health Index, or EQHI.
Belgrave South resident Emily Collins is well aware of the good air quality in her area. It’s one of the reasons why she and her husband moved to the hills about 13 years ago, when she was pregnant with their second child.
Belgrave South resident Emily Collins says the air is noticeably fresher in her patch of the world compared to suburbs closer to Melbourne.Credit: Eddie Jim
“You can smell the difference,” said Collins, who operates a coffee van. “You’ve got the ferns and that real hill-air smell.
“When we come down the mountain, we can see the smog haze. If it’s a really still, calm day, you can see the difference from where we are.”
The mother-of-three three said Belgrave was a wonderful place to raise a family. She’s not surprised that the suburb would score highly on health indicators beyond pollution.
“A lot of the places are half-acre blocks. It’s quieter at night, dark. It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes.
“We’re still part of suburbia. But it is very different.”
The new index system was devised by researchers at Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. They analysed 12 factors, including night-time light pollution, and considered the relative socio-economic advantage of a particular area.
They then combined this data with all-cause, cardiovascular and respiratory mortality data sets and weighted each environmental factor for its health impacts. Variances in temperature, for example, had a big influence on a place’s overall score because of the proven links between heatwaves and the stress that places on someone’s heart.
Residents’ genetics and lifestyle factors – such as rates of smoking or fast-food consumption – were not considered, meaning the map is a reflection of each area’s impact on health and not the precise health of a population.
Victorian places with perfect EQHI scores
- Winchelsea
- Lorne and Anglesea
- Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads
- Portarlington
- Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff
- Mount Baw Baw Region
- Orbost
- Paynesville
- Foster
- French Island
- Korumburra
- Phillip Island
- Wonthaggi and Inverloch
- Yallourn North and Glengarry
- Yarram
- Panton Hill and St Andrews
- Belgrave and Selby
- Mount Dandenong and Olinda
- Bunyip and Garfield
- Emerald and Cockatoo
- Koo Wee Rup
- Pearcedale and Tooradin
- Dromana
- Flinders
- Mount Eliza
- Mount Martha
- Point Nepean
- Rosebud and McCrae
- Glenelg
- Southern Grampians
- Colac Region
- Corangamite North
- Corangamite South
- Otway
- Moyne East
- Moyne West
A higher overall score indicates comparatively better environmental and socio-economic conditions, and therefore lower associated health risks. A lower score reflects the opposite.
Researchers not involved with the project said that while they would interpret the results with some caution, having a single health index was still useful.
Places with scores below 70 tended to be in the state’s west or north-east, where there can be scorching summers, little tree canopy on streets and people tend not to commute to Melbourne for work, where wages tend to be higher.
The state’s lowest EQHI rating was recorded in Mildura North, which scored 43.82 out of 100.
In Greater Melbourne, the worst-rated suburbs were Melbourne Airport with 77.05 and Melton West at 77.2. Residents of Melbourne’s western and north-western suburbs have long complained about air quality.
Monash University professor Yuming Guo, who recently published his findings in the peer-reviewed science journal Environment International, said his air quality research team had done a lot of work on individual risk factors such as bushfire smoke and pollution, but that the effect of the whole environment on a person’s health wasn’t fully understood.
With this in mind, Guo and his team decided to overlay as much reliable data as they could on Australian Bureau of Statistics regions.
A place’s socioeconomic score has the biggest influence on its EQHI rating when environmental factors hold constant across areas. Air pollution ranked as the second most significant factor, followed by variations in temperature.
Victorian places with the lowest EQHI scores
- Bendigo
- Wodonga
- Mooroopna
- Mildura Region
- West Wodonga
- Yarrawonga
- Shepparton South
- Wangaratta
- Shepparton North
- Echuca
- Kerang
- Cobram
- Merbein
- Robinvale
- Red Cliffs
- Swan Hill
- Kangaroo Flat and Golden Square
- Irymple
- Mildura South
- Mildura North
“This environmental index is much more reasonable and much more generalised to different areas,” Guo said.
The goal is to educate policymakers on which places might need additional community and infrastructure investment to tackle events such as heatwaves.
EQHI scores could even end up being used by families to decide where to buy a house, send their kids to school or downsize.
Credit: Matt Golding
But Guo admits the system isn’t perfect, pointing out that he would like to add more environmental factors.
“We need to consider the risk of flooding and tropical cyclones,” he said.
Independent scientists contacted by this masthead noted the study relied on data from 2016 to 2019 – a relatively short period of time, especially when compared to a person’s lifespan. The maps used in this article rely on the 2019 data set.
Another theme was that the index doesn’t explain who is most impacted by environmental quality in a particular area. For example, studies have shown a link between extreme temperatures and miscarriages.
UNSW health economic lecturer Dr Laura Downey said it was nonetheless an interesting study.
“Indices like these are useful to quantify and monitor how where someone lives impacts on their health overall, and specifically, their risk of death from certain environmental factors,” Downey said.
Guo said the index was only in its first iteration. Eventually, he and his fellow scientists want to be able to measure increased health risks in certain areas over time.
While Melbourne suburbs tended to have slightly higher EQHI scores than Sydney, Hobart had the highest scores overall. The capital city with the lowest scores was Darwin.
With Liam Mannix
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