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Primary Health Care - Indigenous Australian Inequalities

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Primary Health Care - Indigenous Australian Inequalities
Page 1 The World Health Organisation (World Health Organisation, 2008) states that the indigenous peoples of Australia are one of the most disadvantaged indigenous groups in the developed world. The health of the Indigenous population of Australia is an increasingly pressing issue. Current research and statistics reveals great inequality in many areas of health care and health status between the Aboriginal people and the general population of Australia. Couzos and Murray (2008, p. 29) report that the Indigenous population has “the worst health status of any identifiable group in Australia, and the poorest access to health systems.” This paper will examine the underlying historical contexts and contributing factors that have lead to the current disparity between the health of the Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians. Furthermore, the high prevalence of chronic health issues such as diabetes will be analysed and community health initiatives that are needed or currently being enacted will be identified.

Many reasons for the current appalling state of health and wellbeing of the Australian Aboriginal people can be explained by examining their recent history to the devastating impacts of colonisation, genocidal policy, loss of land and years of oppression. These several hundred years of cultural destruction, dispossession and social and political upheaval have resulted in generations of trauma and grief (Burke, 2006, para. 4). As reported by Forsyth (2007, p. 35-36), government policies enacted towards the indigenous population in the early 20th Century were concerned primarily with protection and segregation, as the prevailing attitude of the time was that the Indigenous people were largely inferior and were unable to care for themselves. Forsyth continues to explain of the injustice created by the New South Wales parliament with the Aborigines Protection Act of 1909, in which “every aspect of their lives was governed, regulated and controlled”



References: • Allman, T. (2008) Genes & disease : diabetes. New York; Infobase Publishing. • Dragon, N. and Anderson, K. (2011). Indigenous health. Australian Nursing Journal, 19(2), 24-8. • Burke, S. (2006). Changing practices, changing paradigms: working effectively with Indigenous clients. Australian Psychological Society. Retrieved October, 5, 2011 from http://www.psychology.org.au/publications/inpsych/changing/ • Couzos, S • Cribbes. M. and Glaister. K. (2007). 'It 's not easy ': caring for Aboriginal clients with diabetes in remote Australia. Contemporary Nurse, 25; 163-172. • Forsyth (2007). Telling stories: nurses, politics and aboriginal australians, circa 19001980s. Contemporary Nurse, 24(1), 33-44. Insel, P., Ross, D., McMahon, K. and Bernstein, M. (2010). Nutrition. Massachusetts; Jones and Bartless Publishers. • King, M. (2001). The diabetes health care of Aboriginal people in South Australia. Contemporary Nurse, 10(3,4), 147-155. • Zeng, Y. (2006). Longer life and healthy aging. Philadelphia; Springer.

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