Aboriginal health
While Canada, the United States and New Zealand have managed to lift the health standards in their Indigenous communities over the past 25 years, Australian Aboriginal people suffer a worsening health crisis.
Aboriginal health overview
Check out these numbers of Aboriginal health:
2..3 Aboriginal infant mortality rate compared to other Australians.
3 Aboriginal death rate compared to the total Australian population.
1.95 Rate at which Aboriginal people are hospitalised compared to non-Indigenous people.
2 Factor by which the number of babies of Indigenous mothers is more likely to be of low birth weight (less than 2,500 grams) compared to those of non-Indigenous mothers.
54% Percentage of Indigenous aldults who smoke cigarettes, which can be as high as 70% in some northern communities [12].
7% Number of Aboriginal children in remote communities with healthy ears. 93% of Aboriginal children suffer from middle ear infections in early childhood. In remote NT communities ranges vary from 8% to 50%. The WHO regards a rate of 4% as a 'massive public health problem'.
13% Number of Indigenous homes having functioning water, waste, cooking and cleaning facilities (of 4,000 Indigenous homes surveyed during 1998-1999 in the Northern Territory).
6.5 Times an Indigenous youth aged 15 to 24 is more likely to have sexually transmitted infections [1].
10 Times an Aboriginal person is more likely to have kidney disease [4].
Can you answer?
Question: Why are Aboriginal cancer rates at 8% lower than the rate for other Australians (19%)?
Answer:
Because Aboriginal people die young from other causes [2].
Aboriginal alcohol consumption
Almost every traveller has seen Aboriginal people drinking or drunk in parks, yelling at each other. But is this representational for all Indigenous people of Australia?
Aboriginal alcohol consumption: Read more...
Petrol sniffing
Petrol sniffing is a serious health problem which is very common in remote Aboriginal communities. Read about the effects sniffing has on health and why a new petrol brand, Opal, is not as successful as hoped.
Aboriginal life expenctancy
Aboriginal health standards in Australia are now so low that almost half of Aboriginal men and over a third of women die before the they turn 45. Aborignal quality of life is the second worst of the planet—only China rates worse.
Aboriginal life expectancy: Read more...
Aboriginal sexual abuse
Read how the collapse of Aboriginal communities and families affects Aboriginal children and teenager's sexual health and drags them into a vicious cycle of abuse.
Smoking a serious healh problem
Smoking rates in Australia continue to decline. In New South Wales 17.7% of the population identify themselves as smokers.
But Aboriginal continue to smoke much more with rates currently at 43.2% [7].
If you quit smoking today...
When you smoke you subject your body to severe changes which take a long time to neutralise. If you stopped smoking today [7],
- within two months your blood pressure returns to normal
- blood circulation to hands and feet improves
- within a year your risk of dying from coronary heart disease has halved
- after five years your risk of mouth or throat cancer has halved
- after 15 years your risk of coronary heart disease and stroke is almost back to that of a non-smoker.
To reduce the gap in Aboriginal people's life expectancy it is very important to get them give up smoking.
Aboriginal people, doctors and hospitals
Only 20% of Aboriginal people who live in remote communities of more than 50 people have access to a doctor on a daily basis according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures from 2006 [8]. A further 41% have local access to a doctor once a week or once per fortnight.
But 3% could only see a doctor in their own community once a month, the ABS found.
The ABS estimated 18% of Australia's Aboriginal people live in a discrete Indigenous community, most of which are considered remote. Only 10% of them lived in a community with a hospital.
But for many Aboriginal people being in a sterile hospital environment conjures memories of racism and mistreatment.
For a medical environment to work for Aboriginal people it must
- employ Indigenous staff
- have an Indigenous-friendly feel (e.g. by displaying Aboriginal artworks) [3].
Simple recipe for better health
A stunningly simple recipe improved the children's health at Baryulgil Public School, 80km from Grafton, NSW [5]. Health officers discovered that all children were deficient in iron and vitamin C and had developed ear (50%) or skin (25%) infections as a consequence.
The simple remedy was fresh fruit and vegetables and a strict regimen to ensure they were eaten. Six months later the skin infections were gone and the hearing loss caused by the infection was drastically reduced.
Under a Shared Responsibility Agreement families contribute some dollars to the food packages which are now delivered to their communities. "Health problems are way down. The savings in health costs far outweigh the outlay for the scheme," says a campaign leader.
Psychology
In 2006, Dr Helen Milroy from the Palyku people (Pilbara) was Australia's only Aboriginal psychiatrist. According to her research, 24% of Aboriginal children aged 14-17 were at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties compared with 15% in the non-Aboriginal population [6].
Children exposed to high stress events such as illness, family break-up, arrests or financial difficulties are most likely to be in this group. More than one in five children lived in families where there had been seven or more such high stress events in the preceding 12 months.
About 12% of these children were being looked after by a parent who had been forcibly removed from their natural family (Stolen Generations). 33% of these children were in the care of a sole parent.
Health: Are you an Aboriginal person? Get involved!
For this project I'd like to involve Aboriginal people as much as possible. It should also become a platform for your voice and your story.
If you think you can contribute to any of these areas on the left-hand side, I am happy to listen to your advice. If necessary I can help you to put it into words, an audio file or an image for this site.
Contact me and we can find a way how your story helps towards true reconciliation.
Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
www.hollows.org
[1] Koori Mail 394 p.11
[2] Koori Mail, 413, p.6
[3] Koori Mail 413 p.48
[4] National Indigenous Times 135 p.12
[5] Koori Mail 385, p.36
[6] Koori Mail 385, p.13
[7] 'Maari Ma seeking quitters', Koori Mail 427 p.62
[8] 'Aborigines waiting up to three months to see doctor', Koori Mail 431 p.51
[12] 'Quitting smokes the goal of calendar', Koori Mail 417, p.40
The author of this site wishes to recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the land in which we live and work.