CANBERRA, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The wellbeing of Australians has improved after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a government report has found.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) on Thursday published the latest edition of its biennial report on the welfare and wellbeing of Australians.

It found that levels of life satisfaction and psychological distress have improved since the last report, which was published in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2021, but have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

"Australia has come a long way since we released the previous edition of Australia's welfare in September 2021," Matthew James, deputy chief executive officer (CEO) of the AIHW, said in a media release on Thursday.

"At that time, many Australians were experiencing lockdowns, only 44.7 percent of people over the age of 16 were fully vaccinated against COVID and most children aged 12-15 weren't yet eligible to receive COVID vaccines. Life is much more 'normal' now for most Australians, however, some things are quite different to before the pandemic."

The AIHW report cited the long-running quarterly ANUPoll survey conducted by Australian National University (ANU) researchers, which found that the proportion of the population that reported feeling lonely at least some of the time has fallen from 46 percent in April 2020 to 37 percent in August 2023.

ANUPoll found that the average life satisfaction of Australians fell from 6.9 out of 10 in January 2020 to 6.5 out of 10 in August 2021. Average life satisfaction increased to 6.8 out of 10 in January 2023 but declined to 6.6 in August 2023.

According to AIHW data, Australian governments spent 212.4 billion Australian dollars (135.5 billion U.S. dollars) on welfare services and payments in the financial year 2021-22, down from 231 billion Australian dollars (147.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the financial year 2020-21 as pandemic support measures were wound down. Enditem

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