401372 Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Assignment Sample

Social Determinants of Health

Introduction to Health of Aboriginals

Health of Aboriginals is a constant challenge for the government and non-governmental organizations in Australia. Social determinants of health conditions of Aboriginals include the place where they were born, grow, live, work and age. The gap in the status of Aboriginals and Australians is unacceptably wide particularly concerning chronic and communicable diseases, mental health, infant health and life expectations rate. There are several factors responsible for an entrenched health crisis include inequality between aboriginals and white Australians, the low-income status of the families, overcrowded and rundown housing due to poverty, inaccessibility to health care services, poor infant diet and improper education.

Reasons Why Social Determinants Need to Address

All these factors contribute to greater stress and burden. It was identified that chronic stress generated due to these factors can have a direct impact on the body's immune system. It may affect the metabolic activities and can also impact the circulatory system through a variety of hormonal pathways. These people also experience mental health problems that are caused by community dysfunction. It was identified through health statistics that one in three Aboriginal youth suffers from mental stress. Besides this, 61 per cent of the people in the Northern territory were found to suffer from hearing loss in 2018. The aboriginals suffered the most from cardiovascular health diseases, cancer, diabetes, social and emotional wellbeing, kidney health, respiratory diseases, eye and oral health and communicable diseases. Hospitals in Australia do not entertain people with small diseases (Gannon 2018).

Their major focus remains on the people who are diagnosed with severe diseases. This is why separation rates are very high in the hospitals and the biggest disadvantage of this fact is that many patients suffer from an illness which grows in time and became a chronic one. Aboriginal people do not get the same health care that Australians get. Moreover, it was identified through studies that the death rate in Aboriginals has increased according to the 2017 census. The death rate from intentional self-harm is two times higher than the Australians with a death rate of 25 per cent per 1,00,000 people and 12.7 per cent when compared with Australians. It was also identified that the other causes of the death in Aboriginals were due to non-communicable diseases in the people which grow over time.

The statistics of 2016 reveals that aboriginal’s weekly household income was 33% lower than the Australians. They used to earn 623 Australian dollars in comparison to Australians who used to earn $953. It was also identified through research that personal income of Aboriginals above 15 years of age was lower than the Australians whether they are working in a remote region, outer region, major cities, remote areas or in parts of Australia. It was noted that the main source of income in Aboriginals is the pension or allowances distributed to the people. According to the census, 18 per cent of the aboriginal people are unemployed in 2018 in comparison to the Australians. The unemployment rate in the past few years varied greatly. The unemployment rate was found to be higher in the people between 15 years and 24 years of age(Finlayson 2018).It was also identified that the unemployment rates were higher in Northern Territory and Western Australia. Besides, the literacy rate of the aboriginal student in remote areas is high. There was 18 per cent of the people who failed to reach the national minimal reading and writing standard. There were many reasons for low education among people. These include inappropriate learning environment, poor knowledge of parents, trauma and mistrust, little enrollment of the children and embarrassment to attend school (Macniven et al. 2018).These are the main reasons why the public education system of Australia is never called a success. It is because aboriginal students never got any benefit from it. The condition of aboriginals in the country is poor in spite of the efforts of government and non-government authorities.

Goals and Objective of Health of Aboriginals

Strategic goal

• To find out measures by which the health condition of Aboriginal people in Australia can be improved.

Here is a list of objectives of the proposal

• To improve the learning condition of Aboriginal children so that they can also get primary and secondary education.
• To increase the employment of Aboriginals so that they can earn a basic income to run their families (Reading and Greenwood 2018).
• To create an equal opportunity system for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia.
• To create policies and strategies which can help the aboriginals to have a better living condition?

Alignment with Government and Global Health Agenda

The global health agenda sets out a vision for 10 years. It includes an assessment of the world health through scientific research and analysis and emphasis to bridge the gap that has been addressed while assessing and improving the health of the people. Majorly, it addresses the two criteria that are managing interdependence and globalization and addressing the growing inequalities between the people of the world. It aligns with the government policies that are aiming to reduce the gap that exists between Aboriginals and Australians and to create a healthy environment where Aboriginals do face any sort of racism in any of the services (HealthInfoNet et al. 2020). Global health also underpins areas that need immediate attention. The World health organization focuses on to improve the primary health care services and also addresses the social determinants that are the root cause of the ill health of the people.It prioritizes health policies as in all the other policies as the Australian government is currently working on. World health organization works onimproving the access of essential medicines and health products to the people. The Australian government is also trying to adopt this policy in its health and welfare memorandum.

Recommendations on Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing

Aboriginal people in Australia have the right to live a healthy and safe lifestyle empowered with a strong connection to culture and the country. The country needs a health plan for improving the health condition of the aboriginals by closing the gap between Australians and them. The health plan wills priorities to continuously improve accessibility, appropriateness and impact. The government needs to create a vibrant and effective community-controlled health sector. It must support housing, education and employment that is all the three necessities to eliminate the cause of health inequality. The Australian government must ensure that all Aboriginal people get the best clinical care in hospitals and care centers. They must ensure that all the older adults of the community live in a secure and comfortable culture of their own. Besides all the adults in the Aboriginals get the health resources to maintain their health and have long productive lives. It must also work in providing a healthy atmosphere to the youths so that they can thrive and grow into healthy adults with the constant support of the government (D'Aprano et al. 2016).The government of Australia must also work to provide the best education to the children so that later on they can get the employment of their own choice and earn sufficient amount of money to nurture the family. The government apart from all these must also take care of the mothers and their babies by providing them with the best possible support and care for a good life.

To manage such a large community and avoid discrepancies individuals of the community must actively engage in the decision making process. Besides, the government also needs to work on the emotional wellbeing by engaging the community members in activities that resolve the difference between Aboriginals and Australians. The targets for closing the gap framework include the halve the gap between the aboriginals by 2031. The country needs to implement an anti-racism policy. The government needs to enhance the health system performance in all the areas. It must continue to fund and support the health organization (D'Aprano et al. 2016). The government must adopt eHealth services for those who find it difficult to communicate with the Aboriginals and find language as the main barrier in understanding the health consensus of the people. It must equally improve the clinical effectiveness of the Aboriginals.

Responsibility of The Owner

Health issues must be first addressed at the community level. The leaders of the community need to take the responsibility to improve the health of the suffers. If it is not mitigated at the community level, the patient must be taken to the region's hospital(Anderson and Sanders 2018). Now, it is the responsibility of the hospital staff or the care providers to cure the disease of the Aboriginal and help them to improve the wellbeing. Besides this, specialist services can also be availed by the people.

Timeframe

All the recommendations and targets must be achieved within a time frame of the next five years.

Evaluation Criteria and Metrics to Monitor Progress

The health metrics work on the measuring the strategies and policies by collecting data and synthesizing data from different sources to monitor the progress of the health plan and its performance on the Aboriginals (Anderson and Brady 2018).The health plan would be evaluated based on service accessibility, service appropriateness, service effectiveness, mental health care system and skilled, knowledge and integrated workforce. At last, all these are cumulated to find a summative evolution.

References for Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing

Anderson, I. and Brady, M. 2018. Performance indicators for Aboriginal health services.

Anderson, I. and Sanders, W. 2018. Aboriginal health and institutional reform within Australian federalism.

D'Aprano, A., Silburn, S., Johnston, V., Bailie, R., Mensah, F., Oberklaid, F. and Robinson, G 2016. Challenges in monitoring the development of young children in remote Aboriginal health services: clinical audit findings and recommendations for improving practice.

Finlayson, J. 2018. Aboriginal employment, native title and regionalism.

Gannon, M. 2018. Indigenous health: Closing the gap-10 year review. Australian Medicine, 30(3), p.25.

HealthInfoNet, A.I., Jane, B., Drew, N., Elwell, M., FitzGerald, V., Hoareau, J., Potter, C., Poynton, M., Swann, T. and Trzesinski, A. 2020. Overview of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health status 2019.

Macniven, R., Richards, J., Gubhaju, L., Joshy, G., Bauman, A., Banks, E. and Eades, S.2016. Physical activity, healthy lifestyle behaviors, neighborhood environment characteristics and social support among Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal adults. Preventive medicine reports, 3, pp.203-210.

Reading, C. and Greenwood, M.2018. Structural determinants of Aboriginal peoples’ health. Determinants of Indigenous Peoples' Health: Beyond the Social, 1.

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