Community profiles

West Wimmera Health Service has released community profiles to provide detailed snapshots of health, wellbeing and liveability in nine towns across the Wimmera and southern Mallee.

To complete the project, the service collaborated with the John Richards Centre at La Trobe University Rural Health School.

The profiles aimed to go beyond large-scale data sets available on the health of regions and delve deeper into Nhill, Natimuk, Goroke, Kaniva, Jeparit, Rainbow, Minyip, Rupanyup and Murtoa.

West Wimmera Health Service health promotion manager Dorothy McLaren said it was exciting the service would have access to ‘solid benchmarking data’ for the first time.

“This means from this year forward, we will be able to track the health and wellbeing of these small communities over time,” she said.

“This information is particularly important as it will help us tailor initiatives to support and improve the overall health of towns.”

The data concluded that all nine towns have a higher rate of mental-health conditions compared with the state average of 8.8 percent.

Jeparit recorded the highest instance of mental-health conditions, at 17 percent.

The data reported that communities are home to many people aged in their late-40s to mid50s, compared with the Victorian average of 38 years.

People wanting more data and information about community health and wellbeing profiles can contact health.promotion@ wwhs.net.au

Justice party deregistered

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party has voluntarily deregistered in Victoria.

VEC, under the Electoral Act 2002.

facilitating recovery initiatives in affected communities.

The Horsham event is free, but registrations are essential for catering purposes to Annie on 0407 914 498 or Cobba on 0481 941 017.

Ms Thomson will also be part of a Horsham Urban Landcare event at The Patch at the Salvation Army on Saturday from 9.30am. The Beginner’s Guide to Gardening event is free and includes a barbecue lunch.