A comprehensive report mapping Australians' health has revealed 54 - 57 per cent of people living in Melbourne's CBD, and in the surrounding suburbs of Carlton, Docklands, Southbank, and North Melbourne are a healthy weight.

These suburbs were closely followed by Toorak, Albert Park, and Surrey Hills where people of a healthy weight still outnumber those who are overweight and obese. But only just.

As soon as you look beyond Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs and into rural and regional areas of the state, the scales tip.

In Thomastown, Lalor and Campbellfield in Melbourne's north, 71 per cent of people are now overweight or obese, putting them at risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Corio and Norlane in Geelong posted the same result. They were followed by Meadow Heights, Bacchus Marsh and Melton West.

But Melbourne's affluent areas were not immune to health problems. Carlton and Melbourne made the top three suburbs in Australia for high blood pressure, with 54 and 53 per cent suffering from the condition, which puts you at risk of stroke and heart attacks.

Living by the sea or in the bush may have a protective effect, though. The lowest rates of blood pressure problems were found in Dromana, Daylesford, Phillip Island and Brighton where only 12 to 15 per cent of residents were affected.

High cholesterol also transcended socio-economic boundaries with the highest rates found in Parkville, East Melbourne, South Yarra, Camberwell and Surrey Hills, affecting about 37 to 39 per cent of people.

The lowest rates of risky cholesterol were found in Meadow Heights, Campbellfield, Coolaroo, Lalor, Thomastown, Roxburgh Park and Somerton with 31 per cent affected.

While Byron Bay in New South Wales was Australia's capital of risky drinking, Bright in Victoria's high country posted the highest rate in Victoria with 28 per cent of people confessing to the habit. It was trailed by Beaumaris, Sandringham, East Melbourne and South Yarra with rates of 26-28 per cent.

The data – mapped on a new website by the Australian Health Policy Collaboration at Victoria University and Torrens University – showed wide disparity in smoking rates.

In Corio, Norlane, Moe and Morwell, about one in three people smoke compared to one in 10 in Kew, Surrey Hills, Malvern and Camberwell, which also has the lowest rate of heart disease deaths in Australia.

Suburbs with the highest rates of type 2 diabetes included Niddrie, Essendon, Dandenong and Meadow Heights where 8-10 per cent of people have it. Suburbs with the lowest rates were Ivanhoe East, Armadale, Camberwell, Glen Iris, and Horsham where only 2 per cent have the obesity related disease.

The same trends applied to deaths from cardiovascular disease such as heart disease and stroke.

Camberwell and Surrey Hills had the lowest rates of such deaths in Australia, with 13 deaths per 100,000 people. In contrast, Robinvale, Heidelberg West, Loddon, Broadmeadows and Altona North had rates between 103 to 128 cases per 100,000.  

For cancer deaths, the lowest rates were in Docklands, Southbank, Romsey, Mansfield, Ashburton, Hawthorn, and Melbourne with rates of 50 - 84 per 100,000 people.

The worst off areas were Seymour, Rutherglen, Robinvale, Sale, Shepparton, Benalla, Maiden Gully with 192 to 246 per 100,000 people.

Dr Andrew Knight, a GP and conjoint senior lecturer at the University of NSW who reviewed the data, said people living in rural and remote areas often had poorer health than their urban counterparts, partly because they live further from health services.

Despite Medicare providing access to free health services for all Australians, Dr Knight said money also plays a small role in how healthy people are. Aside from being associated with good health education, money gives people access to health programs, gyms, dietary advice and the best heart surgeon in town on the day they need an operation.

"The higher you are on the pecking order, the healthier you are…There is a clear gradient across the country," he said.

Professor Maximilian de Courten, a public health expert and epidemiologist at Victoria University, said he hoped people would look up the statistics for their areas to reflect on their own health and things their community could do to improve the health of others.

He said "wealthier post codes were healthier post codes" and that people in poorer areas tended to suffer from a range of risk factors that interact with each other, compounding their problems. For example, he said obesity increased the risk of diabetes and high cholesterol, along with heart disease and cancer.

"Some behaviours go hand in hand too. People who use a lot of alcohol tend to smoke as well," he said.