What is Chronic Disease?
The term chronic disease applies to a group of conditions that are the main cause of reduced quality of life and premature death in Australia.
The majority of chronic conditions have a preventable component.
Non-modifiable factors such as your genes, ethnicity and age play a role, but typically there is a great deal that you can do to reduce your risk or catch these conditions early, through optimising lifestyle factors and accessing recommended screening.
The causes of these conditions are not a mystery but sadly, many have their lives cut short or severely impacted because they weren’t aware of their level of risk.
There is one phrase we’d like to remove from the world: ‘If only I’d known’.
Thrive enables the identification of 95% of chronic disease risk.
The In2health Thrive assessment utilises data from 130 risk and protective factors to calculate the level of risk for 20+ chronic conditions.
The Thrive Health Dashboard incorporates 25 high-level and more detailed health scores and provides the option to access a GP-reviewed Health Profile and Action Plan.
This plan is designed to empower individuals to reduce their future risk, providing personalised recommendations on lifestyle changes and health screening as well as the full range of detailed health scores.
Thrive ‘Reduce my Risks’ tool
The Thrive Dashboard includes this useful tool, which assesses the impact of future lifestyle changes on your Medical Age and Vitality Score. Log in to your Dashboard to have a play.
FYI, the Medical Age is an evidence-based calculation of the effect of 20 lifestyle risk and protective factors on life expectancy.
It’s possible to have a Medical Age much younger than your actual age - we think that’s a pretty good goal to set.
Are the Thrive chronic disease risk scores similar to the risk assessments I have with my GP?
Common risk calculators used in general practice, such as the Australian Cardiovascular Risk score and Australian Diabetes Risk score, predict your risk of developing these conditions in the near future, typically in the next 5 to 10 years. These are very important.
In comparison, the Thrive assessment has a longer trajectory, as this analyses your lifetime risk.
The rationale for this approach is that our focus is not on starting treatment for the chronic condition you already have signs of, but rather motivating you to make changes now to improve your scores and reduce your risk of developing one or many chronic conditions in the future.
Thrive chronic condition risk calculations
This is the list of chronic conditions that we analyse the lifetime risk of through Thrive:
✔ Cancers - Breast, Prostate, Bowel, Lung, Pancreatic and Skin (melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers)
✔ Mental health conditions (Depression, Anxiety & PTSD)
✔ Metabolic syndromes - Type 2 and Gestational ( pregnancy related ) diabetes, Obstructive Sleep Apnoea and Metabolic Associated Fatty Liver Disease
✔ Heart disease (including ischaemic heart disease and atrial fibrillation)
✔ Stroke
✔ High blood pressure ( hypertension )
✔ Chronic kidney disease
✔ Back pain
✔ Osteoporosis
✔ Osteoarthritis
✔ Hepatitis B
✔ Eye Health - Glaucoma and Age-Related Macular Degeneration
✔ Dementia - Vascular and Alzheimers types
✔ Back, neck pain and repetitive strain injuries
Fifteen of these scores are visible in the Health Dashboard; detailed information about these and the remaining risk scores are available in the Thrive Health Profile and Action Plan.