The central city and the trendy inner north are home to the ACT's least healthy and least happy residents, new analysis reveals.
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Acton, Braddon, Campbell, Civic, Turner and Reid rank among the worst areas on a variety of indicators compiled by the Public Health Information Development Unit.
As a group they have the highest cholesterol, the greatest incidence of mental health problems and the second highest rate of heart disease in the ACT.
They also have the second highest rate of disease caused by high blood pressure and the third highest rate of diabetes.
Despite figures indicating the inner city and surrounds could be a stressful place to live, residents said for the most part they were happy.
Nina and Chris from the leafy suburb of Turner said the inner north was generally lovely although transport and housing density had caused tension as of late.
Traffic congestion on Northbourne Avenue was a particular issue and many drivers had started zipping through the back lanes of Turner to avoid it, mother Chris said.
"There's a lot of rat running through the back streets," she said.
"And any time you get near Northbourne Avenue you are going to hit traffic jams."
Increased housing density in the area was typically a good thing, although property developers possibly had too much influence on decisions, she added.
Steve and Angela Heanes alternated their time between Perth and the central city suburb of Acton, saying Canberra was a great place to relax and unwind.
"We don't find it stressful at all," Steve said.
The only gripe was there were occasionally too many smokers in the city, Angela added.
"You are constantly trying to dodge the smoke."
The figures, collected across 2011 to 2014, were compiled for the 23 population health areas, or PHAs, found throughout the ACT.
Each PHA contains a group of neighbouring suburbs, for example, Acton, Braddon, Campbell, Civic, Turner and Reid fall into the Inner North grouping.
To facilitate comparison an age-standardised rate is calculated for each indicator the PHA is measured on.
The Inner North PHA had the worst rate of mental health problems (18.4), followed by Hume/ Majura/Kowen (18.3), the Inner South (17.4) and far higher than the Australian average (13.6).
It also had the highest rate of high cholesterol (38.6) followed by Hume/ Majura/ Kowen (37.4) and Farrer/ Isaacs/ Mawson (35.7).
Hume/Majura/Kowen had the worst rate of heart disease (28.4) followed by the Inner North (26.4) and Tuggeranong – South (21.8).
Gungahlin – North had the highest rate of disease caused by high blood pressure (14.2) followed by the Inner North (13.7) and Hume/ Majura/ Kowen (13.5).
The highest incidence of diabetes was found in Gungahlin – South (6.6) followed by Tuggeranong – South (6.5) and the Inner North (6).
Clarification: The figures were complied by the Public Health Information Development Unit, not the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
