How can anti-smoking campaigns be targeted more effectively at Australia’s Indigenous youth? It’s a good question, and one that, as yet, has proven difficult to answer.
Almost half of all Aboriginal and…
Many people die while waiting for dialysis, or after finding the daily visits to a dialysis unit impossible to manage.
Michael Coghlan
By Neale Cohen, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute
Diabetes rates in Australia are high but its prevalence in the Indigenous population is between three and four times higher than the rest of the population. And we are fast running out of time to stop…
A sign outside an Aboriginal community near Darwin, noting the ban on consuming alcohol in the area.
AAP/Xavier La Canna
By Peter d'Abbs, Menzies School of Health Research
The newly elected conservative governments in Queensland and the Northern Territory have opened the way to relaxing laws restricting access to alcohol in Aboriginal communities.
In Queensland, a number…
Relying on FIFO health-care workers is expensive and can end up disempowering local providers.
AIA web team
This is a story about two small Aboriginal communities in the Gulf region of North Queensland: Mornington Island and Doomadgee. They share two key characteristics with many other remote communities: very…
Indigenous Australians are one of the minority groups with high rates of lupus.
Len Matthews
Lupus is a chronic inflammatory systemic autoimmune disorder. It affects various tissues of the body, particularly the heart, joints, lungs, skin and kidneys. An autoimmune illness is one in which body…
This is how to illustrate an article about petrol sniffing without breaching vulnerable people’s privacy.
jcart
By Peter d'Abbs, Menzies School of Health Research
Once again, petrol sniffing in Indigenous communities is in the headlines. And once again, sadly, the restraint that newspapers normally exercise in reporting drug issues among non-Indigenous Australians…
Just beyond the built community lies a health-promoting environment providing cultural, spiritual and physical nourishment.
misha.penkov/Flickr
OBESE NATION: It’s time to admit it – Australia is becoming an obese nation. This series looks at how this has happened and more importantly, what we can do to stop the obesity epidemic.
Today Julie…
Vulnerable people and places are worst affected by weather-related disasters, especially those most reliant on the land.
Chaim Zvi
Mental health problems cause profound suffering and are worthy of attention for that reason alone. But despite policy and service reform, such problems remain as common, expensive and disabling as they…
Aboriginal elders will help lay the path for health-care innovation in Indigenous communities.
aia web team
The notion of walking backwards into the future describes the value we can derive from remembering and understanding our past, in order to best prepare for a better tomorrow. We can’t do this without properly…
A lack of empirical data is hindering indigenous policymaking in the Northern Territory.
AAP
Since its introduction in 2007, there has been much debate over the effectiveness of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) in improving the quality of life in remote indigenous communities…
Government data shows Aboriginal people are twice as likely to have a core activity limitation as non-Aboriginal people.
AAP Image/Karen Michelmore
Alongside high rates of incarceration, unemployment, homelessness and some of the poorest health outcomes in Australia, Indigenous people’s access and use of disability services is under-representative…
Indigenous Australians under 18 will not be included in the sample collection components of the Australia Health Survey.
k-girl/Flickr
The Australian Health Survey’s (AHS) exclusion of data from the Indigenous population raises questions about how serious we are about closing the health gap.
It’s generally accepted that clinical care…
Measures are needed to reduce the number of fathers going into jail as well as the number not coming back.
Casey Serin
There are hopeful signs from a number of sources that the “get tough on crime” approach is working, with politicians promising the era of more prisons and longer sentences has had its day.
Movements such…
The government is ignoring protests against income management, and evidence it doesn’t work.
AAP/Larine Statham
The government is ignoring evidence that income management in Aboriginal communities isn’t working. Despite a raft of studies showing it isn’t changing behaviour or significantly improving people’s life…
Without respectful partnerships, health won’t improve.
AAP
AFTER THE INTERVENTION: Marilyn Wise from the University of New South Wales and Peter O'Mara from the Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association ask whether the NT Intervention has made Indigenous communities…
Australia needs to take a more considered approach to Indigenous spending.
Rusty Stewart
AFTER THE INTERVENTION – Today, The Conversation launches a series looking at the recent history of Indigenous policy in Australia, and some ways forward. Are any of the current approaches working? What…
A blanket approach to improving outcomes can’t work for such a diverse and dispersed population.
AAP
The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report – Headline Indicators for Children’s Health, Development and Wellbeing 2011 – shows Indigenous children, as well as those living in remote areas…
Achieving equity is less about grand gestures than meeting the actual needs of Indigenous Australians.
Sorry by butupa/Flickr
The Australian Institute for Health and Welfare (AIHW) has released its latest report on how much money the Commonwealth and State governments spend on the health of Indigenous Australians. Despite being…
