Australia has long been called the lucky country. With beautiful beaches, a life expectancy of 82 years and great benefits, life sounds pretty good.
However, this is not the case for over 700 000 Indigenous Australians today. In all social indicators, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples rate as the most disadvantaged people in Australia, despite “efforts” by the government. The disparity is so great that the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians are ten years less than the corresponding rates for non-Indigenous Australians.
The Australian Government's response to the levels of disadvantage faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has been the "Closing the Gap" strategy. Due to lack of consultation with Aboriginal
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The housing conditions of Indigenous Australians have received increasing attention both locally and internationally in recent years. The standard of accommodation in Indigenous communities remains lower than that experienced by non-Indigenous Australians.
Overcrowded houses are a major problem in indigenous communities, with small houses and tin sheds being to 10 people on average, sometimes extending to 17 people.
A UN special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing wrote in his report, “The conditions that I saw of overcrowding, up to 30 people living in one house, and the fact that these conditions have existed for 7 decades, it is definitely amongst the worst I’ve seen around the
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In 2012 the rate of disability for ATSI Australians was a shocking 1.7 times the rate for non-Indigenous Australians.
This extreme disadvantage in health comes from the fact that health services are not accessible to many, especially remote Indigenous areas. By communicating to the elders in the Indigenous community, this enormous problem can be easily fixed, and save many lives.
“….We had organisations in town to help us, but they don’t know who’s hurting. That’s because they’re sitting up there in their office. How would they know?.....” –Des Bowen
However, the disadvantages on the Indigenous community extends to not only physical health but mental health as well.
Professor McDermott calls racism a 'sleeper issue' that is systemic in Australia, citing figures suggesting 97 per cent of Indigenous Australians have reported being on the receiving end of racism in the previous 12 months.
“…..97% of Indigenous Australians have reported being on the receiving end of racism……”
"It can be when you walk into a hospital and don't get the right treatment, or it can be overt; abuse or whatever," he
Wakerman J, Tragenza J, Warchivker I (1999) Review of health services in the Kutjungka Region of WA. Perth: Office of Aboriginal Health, Health Department of Western Australia
Advanced knowledge of Aboriginal Health policy and issues at the level and national level including understanding successful measures around Closing the Gap in Aboriginal Health inequality. My desire to work in the aboriginal field begins since I was very young. That is why at 16 years of my age I started to be even more interested in understanding all the issues related to the aborigines of this country. Over time, I looked that all my knowledge be trained at health level basis to help to improve the Aboriginal quality of life standards.
The 1967 referendum resulted in the change of the Constitution on August 10 of that year, initiating the start of great change for the lives of indigenous people in Australia. The referendum sought to change Sections 51 and 127 of the Constitution. Section 51 stated the Federal Government could make laws for anyone in the nation except aborigines, leaving state governments in charge (Creative Spirits – 1967 Referendum, online, 14/8/15). Section 127 specified that when the population of the Commonwealth was counted, indigenous people were not included (Creative Spirits – 1967 Referendum, online, 14/8/15). According to Faith Bandler, an indigenous civil rights activist, it was important to force the Commonwealth to be responsible for the aborigines
Walter, M. (2007). Aboriginality, poverty and health-exploring the connections. Beyond bandaids: exploring the underlying social determinants of aboriginal health. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.lowitja.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/Beyond-Bandaids-CH5.pdf/ [Accessed 10 Apr 2014]
There are 1.1 million Aboriginal peoples living in Canada as of 1996 and 408,100 of them are women (Statistics Canada, 2000; Dion Stout et al, 2001). More than half live in urban centres and two thirds of those reside in Western Canada (Hanselmann, 2001). Vancouver is comprised of 28,000 Aboriginal people representing 7% of the population (Joseph, 1999). Of this total population, 70% live in Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhood which is the Downtown Eastside (DTES).
According to Australian indigenous website, healthinfoNet, in 2010-2012 life expectancy of indigenous people were 69 years which is 11 years less than the 80 years expected for the non- indigenous men and women. Moreover, the life expectancy for native women was 73 years, during 2010-2012, which is 9.5 years less than the expectation of 83 years for non-Indigenous women. The reason for decreased health can be due to deficiencies in water supply, sanitation and lack of proper medical services.
Thank you for taking time to read my letter. As a nursing student of University of Technology Sydney, I studied contemporary indigenous subject this semester. In this letter I want to illustrate 3 main social determinants of health that impact indigenous Australian health which I found and analysed during my recently study. And also offer some suggestion that could help the government improve aboriginal Australian mental health conditions in the future.
Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.
Aboriginal health is majorly determined by several social factors that are related to their cultural beliefs. Health professionals regularly find it difficult to provide health care to aboriginal people due to the cultural disparity that exists between the conventional and aboriginal cultures, predominantly with regard to systems of health belief (Carson, Dunbar, & Chenhall, 2007). The discrepancy between the aboriginal culture and typical Western customs seems to amplify the difficulties experienced in every cross-cultural setting of health service delivery (Selin & Shapiro, 2003). Most of the social determinants of the aboriginal health are due to their strict belief in superstition and divine intervention.
Racism and social disadvantage being the by-products of Australian colonisation have become reality for Aboriginal people from the early beginnings as well as being prevalent to this day. There exists a complex and strong association between racism and Aboriginal poor health, assisting in the undermining of the emotional and social wellbeing of this Indigenous group. Racism has an adverse and insidious effect upon the psychological and physical health of the Aboriginal people, as it gnaws away on the mental state of the individual, having detrimental consequence upon the standard of acceptable health in today 's modern society. The effects of this discrimination become the catalyst towards the undermining of one 's self esteem which leads to detrimental stress levels, self-negativity and having the potential
Immigration is an important feature of Australian society. Since 1945, over six million people from 200 countries have come to Australia as new settlers. Migrants have made a major contribution to shaping modern Australia. People born overseas make up almost one quarter of the total population. About its ethics distribution, aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people totaled 410 003 at the last census, nearly 2.2 per cent of the population. Two thirds of the indigenous people live in towns and cities. Many others live in rural and remote areas, and some still have a broadly traditional way of life.(Ning)
...oing set of interventions is required which can only be provided by a skilled multi-disciplinary workforce, able to sustain effective long-term treating relationships and links with other providers. General practices are not able to meet these needs fully (Keys Young 1997, cited in Dwyer et al 2004), while Indigenous-specific agencies are designed to provide the basic health infrastructure required for effective service delivery. Secondly, for several reasons including historical and cultural ones, mainstream health services are not generally capable of meeting the needs of Indigenous Australians and this makes it hard for Indigenous people to use them. Many Indigenous Australians will go without primary health care (Keys Young 1997, cited in Dwyer et al, 2004) if a service that specifically welcomes them and responds appropriately to their needs is not available.
Indigenous Australians with a disability, particularly those living in regional and remote communities, often live in inaccessible and poor standard housing (ACOSS, 2014). The proportion of people with disabilities in public housing is double that of the general Australian population (The Australian Network of Disability, 2014). It is common for people with a disability to ‘fall out of home ownership’ due to the costs of their disability (medical, transport, personal care services), with 32 per cent of people with disability who are rental tenants reporting that they used to be homeowners (AIHW,
Poor living conditions are a major health determinant throughout the indigenous population. Most Indigenous Australians are known to live in rural parts of Australia which are commonly not close to major cities and services. People living in these areas generally have poorer health than others living in the cities and other parts of Australia. These individuals do not have as much access to health services and good quality housing. In 2006 roughly 14% of indigenous households in Australia were overcrowded unlike 5% of other households (AIHW, 2009a). Overcrowded and poor quality houses are commonly associated with poor physical and mental health between the people living in them. The indigenous are n...
Colonisation practice targeted the indigenous people in a manner which aimed to ‘displace and distance people from their land and resources’ (Sinclair, 2004, p. 50). To achieve this goal, aboriginal culture was destroyed through hostile and mainstream policies. Almost every health related issues and social pathology in indigenous communities is an effect of colonisation. Primary health care providers play significant role in the health of indigenous people. In Australia, first primary health care provider emerged in 1971 and now it has grown to approximately 150.