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Members provide health services and tertiary education for the approximately 700,000 people of northern Queensland, from Mackay to the Torres Strait Islands and to North Western Queensland and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The TAAHC Founding Members are:
- Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service;
- James Cook University (including the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine);
- Mackay Hospital and Health Service;
- Northern Queensland Primary Health Network;
- North West Hospital and Health Service;
- Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service and;
- Townsville Hospital and Health Service
- Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council
Together, our Member's catchment represents 50% of Queensland’s outer regional, remote and very remote populations. They include about 40% of the state’s 180,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The closest major metropolitan centre is Brisbane, which is 1,700 km south of Cairns, 1,300 km from Townsville and 954 km from Mackay. The Tropic of Capricorn intersects its southern boundary, so the region lies almost entirely within the tropics.
The demographics, dispersed population, lack of major metropolitan centres and tropical location of TAAHC drive a distinctive regional orientation in health service delivery, research focus, research training and health professional education.