Overweight, stressed, old and chronically unwell - the population of the Illawarra is in poor health and the prognosis is for things to get worse before they get better.

We drink too much, smoke too much, eat poorly and don't exercise enough. We are more likely than the rest of Australia to die of cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease. We are asthmatic and arthritic, with high cholesterol and hypertension.

And while we have more than our share of health problems, we have less than our share of healthcare services.

A report released today by Illawarra-Shoalhaven Medicare Local (ISML), Population Health Profile: 2013, paints a confronting picture of the health of the region.

According to numerous indicators, the health of Illawarra and Shoalhaven residents is significantly worse than that of their counterparts nationwide and yet the number of general practitioners in the region falls far short of state and national averages.

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Similarly, the Illawarra-Shoalhaven has a significantly higher percentage of people aged 65 and above - 17.6 per cent as opposed to 14.5 per cent for the state and 13.8 per cent for the nation - but aged-care accommodation in the region is well below the state average.

And while the situation is bad, projected population increases will place further pressure on the healthcare system.

As a whole, the population of the Illawarra-Shoalhaven is expected to grow 10 per cent by 2021 - an extra 37,686 people. Over the same period, the number of people aged 65 and above will increase by 35.4 per cent, from 67,781 to 91,750 - an extra 23,969.

Medicare Local population health and workforce co-ordinator Abhijeet Ghosh, the lead author of the report, said the population increase and what it implied for healthcare delivery in the region was one of the findings that really jumped out.

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"An estimated average annual growth of 0.9 per cent is extreme given we are not supplying services adequately for the current population," he said. "If it balloons up so much further, it adds pressure to everything.

"In the aged-care sector, areas of the Shoalhaven are looking at 50 per cent growth in people aged 65 and above in the next 10 years.

"These numbers are massive and give an indication that the aged-care sector needs a lot of work."

Other demographics factors, such as relatively large indigenous, non-English speaking and low socio-economic populations, also contributed to health issues, as did lifestyle.

"We found things like obesity, inadequate vegetable intake, higher-than-recommended alcohol consumption - across the board the Illawarra-Shoalhaven region was doing worse compared to NSW averages," Mr Ghosh said.

"Smoking during pregnancy rates are significantly higher than NSW and national averages too."

Mr Ghosh, who also teaches epidemiology at the University of Wollongong, said the ISML report drew on close to 30 studies and reports by state and federal health departments, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, university academics and others, as well as its own research.

"The purpose of this was to make a comprehensive document so you can get all the doctors, all the policy planners, all the university people together and everybody can work based on the one document rather than working separately from different data sets and different information," he said. "We tried to look at every source of information - cancer histories, research bodies, the ABS, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure. Every data needs to be backed up by different sources to confirm that yes, this is the accurate picture.

"We need to put the argument to governments and policy makers that this is the existing picture and something needs to be done."