The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the impact of history and colonisation on contemporary First People’s health outcomes. It will also analyse how these impacts influenced Australia’s First Peoples ability to build trustful and respectful relationships within the healthcare system. It will commence by explaining the policy era of colonisation and how this era impacted on health. This will then lead into strength-based approaches that healthcare professionals can use to build trustful and respectful relationships. This paper will then introduce the assimilation policy and how this era impacted on health outcomes.…
This adds to the already astonishing poor health of Aboriginal children (2011.) The death of Charles, the families bread winner would have left his family with great financial burdens. His children may feel the need to internalise their feelings and burdens as a way of protecting the mother, this in turn will only heighten probability of developing depression and anxiety. As an indigenous Australian, mental health conditions make up 16% of the disease burden experienced (Australian bureau of statistics, 2011). Charles’ wife must support her family as the shift in responsibilities lays solely with her, this amount of pressure can cause stress which is a predisposition for obesity heart attacks and depression and…
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s presence is vital to the Australia for them to adapt for the people’s achievement of the highest possible standard of mental health and also to the prevention of suicidal. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be trained, employed, empowered and valued to lead across all parts of the Australian mental health system that are dedicated to improving their wellbeing and mental health and to reducing suicide, and in all parts of that system used by them. They also should be qualified, working, enabled and appreciated to lead in all areas of government activity in Australia that affect the wellbeing and mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The Indigenous Australians…
In Australian history the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia were not treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve, they have been the protectors of this land for many years before British colonised here, they lived from the land and they had a very strong community based life. After years of demoralising them and taking their basic ways of life away from them, we now have certain policies and procedures in place to bring the equality back. From the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Health Plan 2013-2023 the government is committed to improving health and wellbeing through closing the gap in health outcomes with the wider Australian population. In the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Health…
Health plays an important role in everyday life. Being healthy is not just being free of disease. Health is a state of being physically fit, mentally stable, and socially comfortable. It is not lifestyle choices or medical treatments that are the primary factors shaping health. It is the experiences within the living experiences called social determinants of health which includes stress, bodies and illness, income and income distribution, education, unemployment and job security, employment and working condition, early childhood development, food insecurity, housing, social exclusion, social safety net, health services, aboriginal status, gender, race and disability.…
These factors differ from that of the perception of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders such as Mrs Akajen. To them health is about so much more than just the…
Data Aboriginal peoples are the descendants of the original inhabitants of North America and the Canadian Constitution recognized three groups of Aboriginal people– Indians, Metis, and Inuit. The total population of Aboriginal people in Canada is approximately 1.5 million with the Indians (now refereed to as First Nations) being 57%, the Metis 33% and the Inuit about 10% of the total population of Aboriginal people. (National Aboriginal Health Organization 2003) According to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), an estimated 18% of the Aboriginal population meet the criteria for clinical depression compared to non-aboriginals which are estimated at 8.2% (PHAC 2011) According to standard scales used on Statistics Canada surveys in 2001, 12% of First Nations and 3.1% of Inuit suffered a major depressive episode and 6.4% were at high risk of depression.…
The standard of living for Indigenous Australians is at a crisis point. Evident through lower life expectancy rates, poor literacy standards and inferior socioeconomic conditions, indigenous Australians can expect to become deceased well before non-indigenous Australians. As reported by Hogg (1992) “Death of Australian Aboriginals, particularly males aged 18-23, is 3 – 5 times more likely than their non-indigenous counterparts”. It is evident that the disparity suffered by Indigenous Australians has a historical context, being a direct result of cultural disenfranchisement and the loss of cultural roots. Furthermore the lack of understanding of the complexities of Indigenous culture within educational frame work has contributed to lowered literacy…
The prevalence of suicide and alcoholism in Aboriginals further emphasize the poor conditions that Aboriginals live under today. Obviously, the poor conditions on reserves are not the only factor causing Aboriginals to be unhappy. The poor mental health and trauma that many Aboriginal people suffer from due to history contribute more to the low quality of life. As studies of Jewish people have shown that trauma is passed down through generations, it is believed that trauma from the historical treatment of Aboriginals has been passed down to current generations, meaning that newer generations continue to feel the effects of the poor treatment endured by their ancestors (Duran, 1998). The poor mental health of many Aboriginals along with poor reserve and economic conditions today support that Aboriginals have been treated unfairly in the past, considering that several of the issues Aboriginal people suffer from today can be linked to unintentional but negative results from assimilation policies and…
At large, aboriginal peoples are faced with more hardships throughout their lives than the average Canadian. With some aboriginal reserves being said to be comparable to severe third world living conditions (Wyld, 2011), Aboriginals are faced with high rates of incarceration, rates of unemployment, poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, and an array of health risks. They also suffer from lower levels of education, in that compared to the average Canadian; the rate of dropouts in aboriginal communities is three times higher than non-aboriginals (Brown, 2014). From looking at these devastating statistics, we as social workers need to take a step back and call into question the reasons for the countless aboriginals suffering within Canada. By analyzing the history of Canada as well as the Aboriginal tribes within Canada, it is evident that a combination of isolation, self-government and high levels of poverty, and language barriers can be said to have lead to the inevitable increase of the abuse of substances – mainly alcohol – within aboriginal…
An individual’s overall health is determined by a multitude of factors that is not just limited to medical conditions (Mikkonen & Raphael, 2010). There are a variety of factors that encompass achieving overall health and well-being; it is defined as the social determinants of health. According to Mikkonen & Raphael (2010) there are 14 social determinants of health (SDoH) and they include unemployment and job security, social safety net, social exclusion, race, income and income distribution, housing, gender, health services, food insecurity, employment and working conditions, education, early life, disability and aboriginal status. Taking into consideration all of these factors defining health it essential to understanding the concept of the…
A consideration of diversity in policy-making should shift the current discourse of culture away from a deficit, behavioural change approach to a rights-based, structural determinant approach. Attention to diversity, thus, may support policy-makers in changing broader social processes and beliefs that presently constrain healthy public policy and maintain ethnic health inequities. There are two theories as to why Māori suffer from health inequalities; one being that Māori have inferior capabilities and the other being that Māori experience greater barriers than others to health. The first reflects a deficit approach, that is those with poorer health are somehow blameworthy for existing health disparities and the second reflects a social determinant…
serves." (pg 518) The authors argue that there is a cultural clash between the aboriginal peoples and the non-aboriginal peoples in Australia and believe that aboriginal peoples cannot receive adequate healthcare, of historic mistrust between them and their health care providers. The authors also claim that there is little or no motivation to change things politically. The authors want the non-aboriginal population to learn about the aboriginal culture and stop patronizing the aboriginal peoples and calls for both social and political change to end health care disparities in Australia.…
Today, fundamental conditions and resources for health such as peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity can widely vary in the diverse aboriginal communities from sufficient to severely lacking. This is because little is known about the distinct influence of social determinants of health in the lives of Aboriginal peoples. In order to improve the health of the aboriginals, considering the diversity of the groups, each group must be considered unique from the next. The complex, intersecting and interrelated determinants and…
This has lead to an increasing issue concerning indigenous health issues such as alcoholism, mental illness, cardiovascular disease, higher mortality rate, drug abuse and disconnection with society. This is so as it has been traced back to the notion that Aboriginals no longer feel connected to ‘country’ through identity and kinship, as a direct result of dispossession and have thus lost income, homes and…