Environmental determinants of health are the elements of the natural and built environments that affect human health. Clean air outdoors and in the home, access to water that is safe for drinking and recreation, and access to public parks to play and exercise in are some of the ways the environment helps to keep us healthy.

Understanding how, and the extent to which, the environment affects health, and the change over time is essential for the development of, and informing on, policies and strategies to protect human health from environmental hazards. We need to be able to measure and monitor environmental determinants of health, and to do so we need a framework that sets out the relevant issues in Australia, and suitable indicators for tracking progress on these.

Australian government public health policy is increasingly including a stronger focus on the environmental determinants of health. The National preventive health strategy 2021–30 recognises the need for indicators of environmental determinants of health to contribute to the comprehensive monitoring and surveillance system for preventive health.

This report outlines a framework of indicators for measuring and monitoring environmental determinants of health in Australia. The scope of the framework includes indicators of the natural and built environment and the impact of these on the Australian population’s health. Although a related concept, occupational indicators are out of scope for this report.