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VICHealth and Human Development2024

VCE Health and Human Development 2024

Walkthrough of the 2024 VCE Health and Human Development exam (100 marks, 14 questions): every question mapped with its average, six worked answers on biological factors, the PBS, the PHWP aid case, SDG 4 and SDG 3, conflict and the HDI, and the extended response, plus the errors in the VCAA report and flags for content outside the 2025 study design.

Marks
100
Time
120 min
Authority
VCAA
Updated
Open the official PDF Official marking notes

This page walks through the 2024 VCE Health and Human Development examination, the last paper set on the previous study design. It maps all 14 questions with the average mark from the VCAA report, works through six of the questions students found hardest or that carried the most marks, and lists the specific errors the examiners reported. Questions on content that the current study design dropped or changed are flagged, so you know which parts to practise as they are and which to skip or adapt.

How to use this page

  • Questions are from the 2024 VCE Health and Human Development examination, copyright Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), listed on the VCAA Health and Human Development examinations page. Each question is summarised in our own words; open the official examination PDF for the full wording and the stimulus material (the NSW Knockout Health Challenge, the overweight and obesity graph, the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program factsheet, the Pakistan climate change article, the mpower initiative and the three sources for Question 14).
  • Answers and guidance are our own responses, written to the marking guidance in the 2024 Health and Human Development external assessment report (Word document). They are not copies of VCAA's sample answers. Averages and score distributions come from the report's tables.
  • Study design. This paper was set on the previous (2018 to 2024) study design; the current study design began in 2025. Most of the paper is still on the current course, but some questions are not: Question 10c (SDG 13 'Climate action') is out, because the current design links SDG 3 with SDGs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 12 instead; Question 11 asked for a WHO "priority" from the old GPW 13 framework, where the current design uses the goal and objectives in GPW 14 (2025 to 2028); Question 8c (Australia's aid priorities) is no longer required, according to the VCAA FAQ; Question 8a is half current, since the current design names bilateral, multilateral and NGO aid but no longer lists emergency aid as a type (humanitarian assistance appears as a purpose of aid); and Question 10b (an objective of the SDGs) is no longer something you must recall, also per the FAQ, though the SDGs themselves are still examined. Question 3 uses the Ottawa Charter prerequisites for health, which the FAQ describes as implicit rather than explicit in Units 3 and 4. Each is flagged in the map below. If you practise Question 10b, use the current World Bank international poverty line of US 3.00 dollars per person per day (in purchasing power parity terms, updated in June 2025), not the older 2.15 or 1.90 dollar figures accepted in 2024.

Structure and timing

The paper was 100 marks in 2 hours of writing time, plus 15 minutes of reading time. There was one section of 14 compulsory short-answer and extended-response questions, with no multiple choice. Parts ranged from 2 to 6 marks, and Question 14 was a 10-mark extended response using three sources.

That is 120÷100=1.2120 \div 100 = 1.2 minutes per mark. A workable plan:

  • Reading time (15 minutes): read every stimulus, and decide which three sources and which health status measures you will use for Question 14.
  • Questions 1 to 7, Unit 3 (35 marks): about 40 minutes.
  • Questions 8 to 13, mostly Unit 4 (55 marks): about 65 minutes.
  • Question 14 (10 marks): about 15 minutes, including a short plan.

The two case studies carry the most marks: Question 8 (the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program) is worth 14 and Question 10 (climate change in Pakistan) is worth 16.

What this paper assessed

Averages are from the VCAA report ("average 1.1 of 2"). Command terms are the question's own.

Question 1 (5 marks): burden of disease

  • 1a (2 marks). Outline DALY and HALE. Average 1.1 of 2.
  • 1b (3 marks). Discuss how underconsumption of fruit may affect Australia's burden of disease. Average 1.5 of 3.
Question 2 (3 marks): Ottawa Charter
Identify and describe one action area reflected in the NSW Knockout Health Challenge, a community-led program for Aboriginal people (workouts, walking groups, cooking classes, nutrition education, yarning circles). Average 1.8 of 3.
Question 3 (4 marks): prerequisites for health
Outline why food and income are prerequisites of health and describe how they lead to improved health outcomes. Average 2.4 of 4. Flag: the prerequisites are implicit, not explicit, in the current design.
Question 4 (3 marks): sustainability
Using an example, describe economic sustainability and explain how it can promote health and wellbeing. Average 1.3 of 3; 37% scored zero.

Question 5 (8 marks): overweight and obesity in 15 to 24 year olds (a bar graph of males and females across 1971 to 1980, 1983 to 1992 and 1993 to 2002)

  • 5a (2 marks). Using data, outline one trend. Average 1.1 of 2.
  • 5b (6 marks). Besides body weight, analyse how two biological factors might contribute to variations in health status between males and females in Australia. Average 1.8 of 6; 41% scored zero.

Question 6 (6 marks): childhood overweight and obesity

  • 6a (3 marks). Explain how preventing obesity could affect one indicator of health status. Average 1.5 of 3.
  • 6b (3 marks). Discuss how marketing processed food to children makes dietary improvements difficult. Average 1.7 of 3.

Question 7 (6 marks): Australia's health system. Analyse how the funding of medications covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) promotes access and equity. Average 2.4 of 6.

Question 8 (14 marks): the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program (PHWP), which builds disaster preparedness in the Pacific and Timor-Leste, 2023 to 2031

  • 8a (2 marks). Describe bilateral aid and emergency aid. Average 1.2 of 2. Flag: bilateral aid is current; emergency aid is no longer named as a type of aid.
  • 8b (4 marks). Besides low education and income, explain two characteristics of a low-income country and the impact of each on health status. Average 2.2 of 4.
  • 8c (3 marks). Identify and describe one Australian aid priority represented in the PHWP. Average 0.9 of 3; 59% scored zero. Flag: aid priority areas are no longer required.
  • 8d (5 marks). Using one feature of effective aid, evaluate the impact the PHWP could have on human development. Average 1.6 of 5.

Question 9 (7 marks): social action and discrimination

  • 9a (3 marks). Outline one example of social action an individual can take and discuss how it could reduce inequality and discrimination. Average 1.7 of 3.
  • 9b (4 marks). Discuss how reducing discrimination based on sexual orientation and on gender identity can promote health and wellbeing, using a different dimension for each. Average 1.9 of 4.

Question 10 (16 marks): climate change in Pakistan (an ABC News article on child malnutrition, stunting, the 2022 floods, a heatwave and school dropouts)

  • 10a (6 marks). Analyse the implications of climate change on health and wellbeing in Pakistan. Average 3.2 of 6.
  • 10b (3 marks). Besides addressing climate change, outline one objective of the SDGs and explain its importance. Average 1.2 of 3. Flag: recall of the SDGs' objectives is no longer required.
  • 10c (3 marks). Describe how achieving SDG 13 'Climate action' could promote human development in Pakistan. Average 1.0 of 3. Flag: SDG 13 is not in the current design.
  • 10d (4 marks). Using the stimulus, explain how achieving SDG 4 'Quality education' contributes to two key features of SDG 3 'Good health and wellbeing'. Average 1.5 of 4.

Question 11 (4 marks): the WHO. Describe one WHO priority and discuss how it is reflected in the mpower tobacco initiative (monitor, protect, offer, warn, enforce, raise). Average 0.9 of 4; 55% scored zero. Flag: the current design uses the GPW 14 goal and objectives, not the GPW 13 priorities.

Question 12 (8 marks): human development

  • 12a (2 marks). Describe the concept of human development. Average 0.8 of 2; 45% scored zero.
  • 12b (6 marks). Explain how conflict could affect two dimensions of the Human Development Index (HDI). Average 2.9 of 6.

Question 13 (6 marks): dimensions of health and wellbeing

  • 13a (4 marks). Using examples, explain how the mental and social dimensions interrelate. Average 2.3 of 4.
  • 13b (2 marks). Using a different example from part a, discuss how mental health and wellbeing may act as a resource nationally. Average 0.8 of 2; 45% scored zero.

Question 14 (10 marks): extended response. Using all three sources (a 2001 account of health in 1900 versus later decades, a timeline of key moments from Melbourne's sewerage to the 2006 smoking bans, and a graph of life expectancy at birth by sex from 1900 to 2020) and your own knowledge, discuss the improvements in Australia's health status since 1900 and the reasons for them, focusing on 'old' public health, biomedical approaches and the Ottawa Charter. Average 3.4 of 10.

Worked practice questions (exam-style)

Worked example

Question 5b (6 marks): biological factors and sex differences

Based on Question 5b (6 marks). Leaving body weight aside, analyse how two biological factors could explain differences in health status between Australian males and females.

Model answer. For each factor, compare the sexes, link the factor to a named condition, and name a health status indicator with a direction.

  • Factor 1: blood pressure. Males are more likely than females to have high blood pressure. High blood pressure strains the heart and damages artery walls, raising the risk of heart attack and stroke. This contributes to higher mortality rates from cardiovascular disease among males and helps explain why male life expectancy is lower than female life expectancy.
  • Factor 2: hormones. Before menopause, oestrogen is thought to protect the heart, for example by raising "good" (HDL) cholesterol and lowering "bad" (LDL) cholesterol, so females tend to develop coronary heart disease later in life than males. This lowers females' premature mortality from coronary heart disease and reduces their years of life lost (YLL) compared with males.

Marker's note: accepted factors were blood pressure, hormones, blood glucose, blood cholesterol and genetics. Body weight or obesity scored nothing because the question excluded it, and "hypertension" was not accepted as the factor (the factor is high blood pressure; hypertension is the condition). The chief assessor's video feedback added that genetic predisposition to cancers found in only one sex (prostate, ovarian, cervical) was not accepted, but breast cancer, which occurs in both sexes, was. High-scoring answers compared males and females, named a disease, and named a specific indicator such as mortality or morbidity.

Worked example

Question 7 (6 marks): PBS funding, access and equity

Based on Question 7 (6 marks). Analyse how the way PBS-listed medicines are funded promotes access and equity.

Model answer.

  1. Government subsidy (access). The federal government, funded through taxation, pays most of the cost of each PBS-listed medicine, so a patient pays only a capped co-payment. Medicines that would otherwise cost hundreds of dollars, such as some cancer or heart medications, become affordable, which removes cost as a barrier and promotes access to essential treatment.
  2. Concession co-payments (equity). Concession card holders, such as pensioners and low-income earners, pay a much lower co-payment than general patients. This gives extra help to the groups who need it most, which is equity: providing what each group requires, not treating everyone the same.
  3. The PBS Safety Net (equity). Once an individual or family's spending on PBS medicines reaches a threshold in a calendar year, general patients pay only the concessional co-payment for the rest of that year, and concession card holders usually pay nothing (apart from any brand premium). This protects people with chronic conditions who need many prescriptions from financial hardship, again promoting equity.

Marker's note: the question was marked on structure, understanding of PBS funding, and how funding promotes access and equity. High-scoring answers named at least two funding types (government subsidy, patient co-payments, the Safety Net, concession co-payments). Answers that confused equity with equality, for example "everyone gets the same medicines at the same price", could not get full marks.

Worked example

Question 8d (5 marks): effective aid and human development in the PHWP

Based on Question 8d (5 marks). Choose one feature of effective aid and evaluate how the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program could affect human development.

Model answer.

  • Feature: partnerships. The PHWP is delivered in partnership with the Pacific community and partner countries, with several partners contributing funds over eight years. Partnerships pool money, expertise and local knowledge, so warehouses are placed and stocked to suit each country's context. Because local partners help plan and run the warehouses, the program is more likely to be accepted, maintained and successful.
  • Long and healthy life. Relief supplies are pre-positioned for use just before or within 48 hours after a disaster, so people get clean water, shelter and food quickly. This reduces deaths and disease after cyclones or floods, helping people lead long and healthy lives.
  • Decent standard of living and access to resources. Rapid access to essentials protects households' basic living standards in a crisis.
  • Participation. The program aims to maximise the leadership and participation of women, girls and people with disabilities in planning and supply decisions, so they take part in decisions that affect their lives and in the life of their community.
  • Judgement. Because partnerships make the program suited to local needs and sustainable over eight years, it is likely to have a strong positive impact on human development, although it prepares for disasters rather than preventing them.

Marker's note: most students could name a feature (partnerships, country ownership, focus on results, sustainability, transparency, a focus on women and girls, cultural appropriateness) and find it in the case study, but many did not explain why that feature makes the program effective. Listing the parts of human development without linking each one to something the PHWP does was not enough for full marks.

Worked example

Question 10d (4 marks): SDG 4 contributing to SDG 3

Based on Question 10d (4 marks). Using the Pakistan article, explain how achieving SDG 4 'Quality education' helps achieve two key features of SDG 3 'Good health and wellbeing'.

Model answer.

  1. Universal literacy and numeracy leads to ending epidemics of communicable diseases. The article reports that floods and heatwaves led to school dropouts. If SDG 4 is achieved and children stay in school, they gain the literacy to read health information about boiling or treating water and handwashing. Fewer people then drink flood-contaminated water, reducing waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.
  2. Equal access to education for girls leads to reduced maternal mortality. Keeping girls in school despite floods lowers the chance of early marriage and early pregnancy, and educated women are more likely to use antenatal care and skilled birth attendants. This reduces maternal mortality.

Marker's note: most students could name key features of SDG 3 but did not show an understanding of SDG 4. When a question links SDG 3 with another goal, name a real feature of both goals (for SDG 4: free primary and secondary education, access to quality early childhood education, universal literacy and numeracy, safe and inclusive schools) and tie each chain to the stimulus.

Worked example

Question 12b (6 marks): conflict and the HDI

Based on Question 12b (6 marks). Explain how conflict could affect two dimensions of the Human Development Index.

Model answer.

  • Dimension 1: knowledge. In conflict, schools are damaged or used by armed groups, teachers flee and travel to school becomes dangerous, so many children stop attending. This lowers the mean and expected years of schooling, the indicators used for the knowledge dimension, so the country's HDI falls.
  • Dimension 2: a long and healthy life. Conflict causes deaths and injuries directly, and it destroys hospitals, water supplies and sanitation, so diseases such as cholera spread and care is hard to reach. Premature deaths rise, reducing life expectancy at birth, the indicator for this dimension.

Marker's note: the three dimensions are a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Low-scoring answers named indicators (life expectancy, years of schooling, GNI per capita) as if they were the dimensions. High-scoring answers named the dimension, explained a specific effect of conflict, then used the matching indicator to show the change.

Worked example

Question 14 (10 marks): improvements in Australia's health status since 1900

Based on Question 14 (10 marks). Using all three sources and your own knowledge, discuss how and why Australia's health status has improved since 1900, focusing on old public health, biomedical approaches and the Ottawa Charter.

Response plan. Organise by the three approaches, not by source, and pick a health status measure for each before you write.

  1. Introduction. State the improvement with data: Source 1 says life expectancy at birth in 1900 was 52 for men and 55 for women, and Source 3 shows both sexes above 80 by 2020. Source 1 also shows maternal deaths falling from 6 per 1000 live births to 11 per 100 000 confinements by the 1990s.
  2. Old public health. Sewerage connections in Melbourne in the early 1900s (Source 2) cut contact with human waste, so fewer children died of diarrhoea (Source 1): lower under-5 mortality, higher life expectancy. Quarantine for Spanish influenza (Source 2) reduced communicable disease morbidity. Own knowledge: clean water supply, better housing and workplace safety laws that reduced deaths from work accidents (Source 1).
  3. Biomedical approaches. Penicillin from the 1940s and polio vaccination from 1956 (Source 2) treated and prevented infections that once killed people through pneumonia or tuberculosis (Source 1), lowering mortality and years of life lost. Own knowledge: better antenatal and obstetric care reduced maternal mortality; heart surgery, stents and cancer treatment mean people now die of these diseases later, at about 70 (Source 1).
  4. Ottawa Charter. Build healthy public policy: Victoria's compulsory seatbelt law in 1970, UV protection rules for schools in 2004, and smoking bans in enclosed public places by 2006 (Source 2), reducing road deaths, melanoma and lung cancer. Own knowledge: Quitline (create supportive environments, reorient health services) and school programs such as SunSmart (develop personal skills). Link each to a measure, such as fewer years of life lost from road injury or a lower incidence of lung cancer.
  5. Conclusion. All three approaches contributed: old public health drove the early fall in infectious disease deaths, biomedical advances added years from the 1940s, and health promotion since the 1980s has reduced deaths from non-communicable disease and injury.

Marker's note: the six criteria were structure, use of the stimulus, own knowledge, and understanding of each of the three approaches' contribution to health status. Responses organised source by source tended to restate the stimulus. Higher-scoring responses signposted the sources, for example "(Source 2)", and used measures beyond life expectancy (under-5 mortality, maternal mortality, incidence of cancer, cardiovascular disease and tuberculosis). The report also warned against calling the biomedical approach a "quick fix", since many treatments are slow and many conditions cannot be cured.

Common errors students made

  • Vague impacts (general, Questions 1, 8b, 8d, 10a, 12b). Writing "impacts YLL" or "affects life expectancy" instead of stating the direction, such as "increases years of life lost through premature death".
  • Unexplained abbreviations. Many students wrote "h&w" without first writing "health and wellbeing" in full. DALY, HALE, PBS, SDGs and WHO were acceptable; other short forms must be spelt out first, and only for that question.
  • Question 1b. Writing "nutrients" or "vitamins and minerals" without naming one found in fruit (vitamin C, fibre, potassium) and linking it to a condition. Linking fruit to obesity only worked through fibre and satiety.
  • Question 2. Choosing Create Supportive Environments but not showing how the program builds a safe, culturally appropriate social environment. Build Healthy Public Policy was not accepted.
  • Question 3. Writing about a lack of food or income, when the question asked why having them leads to better health.
  • Question 4. Describing economic sustainability without referring to both current and future generations, which was needed for full marks.
  • Question 5a. Describing the data at a single point in time instead of a change from 1971 to 1980 through to 1993 to 2002.
  • Question 5b. Listing body weight or obesity (excluded), or naming "hypertension" as the factor instead of high blood pressure. The chief assessor's video also warned against cancers found in only one sex.
  • Question 6a. Explaining how obesity affects health status rather than how preventing it does; those answers scored zero.
  • Question 7. Confusing equity with equality.
  • Question 8a. Writing "country to country" or "government to government" for bilateral aid (it is from one country's government to another country's government), or "aid given in an emergency".
  • Question 8b. Giving characteristics tied to education or income (low GNI per capita, poverty), or "high unemployment", which the report said is inaccurate: people in low-income countries are often employed, but in low-paid work such as agriculture.
  • Question 8c. 59% scored zero. Both current and previous DFAT priorities were accepted, but the priority had to be named accurately and shown in the PHWP.
  • Question 9a. Naming a general action such as "lobbying" without saying who is lobbied and about what.
  • Question 9b. Generic discrimination statements with no understanding of sexual orientation or gender identity, or writing about the harm of discrimination instead of the benefit of reducing it (no marks).
  • Question 10a. Restating the article. Higher-scoring answers linked more than one effect of climate change to three or more dimensions.
  • Question 10b. Confusing an objective of the SDGs (such as ending extreme poverty or fighting inequality and injustice) with a single goal such as No Poverty, or explaining why the SDGs were created.
  • Question 10c. Discussing human development without any feature of SDG 13.
  • Question 11. Treating tobacco as a health emergency or a universal health coverage issue, which could not be linked to mpower.
  • Question 12b. Naming HDI indicators instead of dimensions.
  • Question 13a. Describing a one-way effect instead of a two-way interrelationship between mental and social health and wellbeing.
  • Question 13b. Reusing an example from part a, which scored zero.
  • Question 14. Structuring the answer source by source, and not linking each approach to a health status measure.

How to use this paper

Sit the whole paper in 2 hours after 15 minutes of reading time, but skip or adapt the flagged parts: rewrite Question 10c using SDG 12 or another goal on the current list, and answer Question 11 with a GPW 14 objective. Then mark your answers against the criteria in the VCAA report, paying most attention to the questions with the lowest averages relative to their marks (5b, 8d, 10d, 11, 14). For each one, check that you named the concept accurately, linked it to the stimulus, and stated a health status indicator or part of human development with a direction. Finally, plan Question 14 again in five minutes around the three approaches, with one measure of health status for each, and write it out in 15 minutes.

Use this paper well

  1. Sit the paper under exam conditions (120 minutes, 100 marks).
  2. Mark yourself against the official VCAA marking notes.
  3. Compare against the Health and Human Development hub to find the syllabus dot points this paper tested.

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