Aboriginal people are at greater risk of severe illness from COVID-19 than non-Aboriginal people. But plans to protect remote communities and keep the virus out are progressing too slowly.
Regular exercise reduces the risk of obesity and a number of chronic diseases.
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Just one in four Indigenous women play sport or are physically active, with many citing racism, cost and gendered expectations as barriers.
Walpiri Transient Camp, Katherine: Western medicine can’t be expected to work for disadvantaged Indigenous Australians unless housing and social disadvantage are also addressed.
Simon Quilty, Australian National University e Lisa Wood, The University of Western Australia
A safe home, a working fridge and access to transport are all needed before western medicine has a chance of working in the long term. But a new way of providing care can help.
Rates of resistance to the bacteria commonly known as golden staph are at least double in remote Indigenous communities what they are in Australia’s major cities.
Lucy Hughes Jones/AAP
Asha Bowen, Telethon Kids Institute e Steven Tong, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest health challenges of the modern day. It’s especially prevalent, and must be acted on, in Australia’s remote Indigenous communities.
Sunshine Coast University Hospital uses evidence-based design to provide outside spaces with views that Indigenous people tell us they value.
Architectus
Many Aboriginal survivors of sexual abuse find mainstream counselling inappropriate. But there is a way to help them heal that respects a collective culture, with strong community ties.
If one parent has ADPKD, their child has a one in two chance of getting it.
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Lung infections are the most common reason for Aboriginal children to be hospitalised. But many cases can be prevented by seeking treatment for wet coughs that last for four weeks or more.
The Treaty of Waitangi obliges the state to ensure that public policy is as effective for Māori as it is for everybody else.
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A report on primary health care found New Zealand fails to deliver good outcomes for Māori because the state does not stand aside to allow Māori to take charge of their own affairs.
Mental illness is more common among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders than in the non-Indigenous population.
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A culturally specific screening tool for depression has been successfully tested among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. This is why it’s so important we start rolling it out.
The Aged Care Royal Commission is currently looking at aged care for Indigenous Australians.
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As the Aged Care Royal Commission shifts its focus to aged care for Indigenous Australians, access isn’t the only challenge. Often problems arise when services don’t accommodate their cultural needs.
Researchers are testing an equity-based model in emergency departments, mental health agencies and hospital units.
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When care is equity-oriented, patients report fewer depression and trauma symptoms, less chronic pain and improved quality of life.
Australia sees higher rates of disability in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population than the non-Indigenous population.
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The experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians must be at the forefront of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
Australia’s first Aboriginal Brain Injury Coordinator, Rebecca Clinch, with brain injury survivor Justin Kickett.
Edith Cowan University
The absence of Indigenous Australians in rehabilitation services has created the belief they don’t want therapy. The reality is they want services which better meet their cultural needs.
Being separated from their children affects the mental well-being of Aboriginal mothers in prison.
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Aboriginal mothers in prison feel intergenerational trauma and the forced removal of their children are the most significant factors impacting their health and well-being.
Detail from a poster designed by the Indigenous creative agency Iscariot Media, which highlights the problem of cyberbullying.
Author provided
Online abuse has been in the spotlight during this election campaign and AFL season. But researchers and policy-makers alike need to do more to understand cyberbullying against Indigenous Australians.
Government policies on Indigenous health have so far largely failed in closing the gap.
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The Coalition and Labor have outlined their plans for Indigenous health spending. There are some worthwhile pledges, but these policy promises could better reflect what our First Nations people need.
The antibiotics commonly used to treat school sores, a skin infection affecting thousands of Aboriginal kids, are out of stock.
Terry Trewin/AAP
Almost half of Aboriginal kids living remotely will have a school sore at any one time. But there aren’t enough of the right antibiotics to treat them.
Over the past five years, one in every four children who died by suicide in Australia was Indigenous.
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Poverty and social exclusion play a big role in Indigenous child suicide. The causes are complex but we know enough to act now to reduce the number of deaths in our communities.
Participants noted that Māori and Pasifika research was considered less rigorous.
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Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne