Aboriginal people engage
One of the issues that has affected my understanding about aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is life expectancy status. In module one, aboriginal and Torres strait islander health, there is an problem raised by professor David from which I came to know that there is 10-12 years gap in life expectancy between indigenous people and non-indigenous people. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009 cited in Rosentock (2013) mentions that a non-aboriginal people who is born in Australia would live 10-13 year longer than an aboriginal people where life expectancy gaps of male is 12.4 years and female is 13.1 years . Moreover, social detrimental factor such as poverty, racism, educational and occupation status impact on individual where Aboriginal people engage in health risk behavior such as suicide, circulatory disease and cancer thereby, leading the causes of death (Australian government, 2014). There is health disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous people. However, this gap in life expectancy have brought some positive changes in indigenous health status such as slightly difference in mortality rate. Moreover, after attending my aboriginal classes and going through reading about aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy and poor health status motivated me to research more about them.
As an international student, tutorial reading was my first exposure to aboriginal and Torres Strait islander health situation and life expectancy. A similar situation exist in my back home country Nepal. Moreover, there is life expectancy and health status gap between village people and city people. However, before attending class and listening to what David had to say, I felt that there is equal health access for everybody In Australia. I believed that aboriginal people live longer than non-aboriginal people. Furthermore, after engaging in class my knowledge about aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health situation has expanded. I knew that social and economic factor such as unemployment, poverty, racism accounted issues to life expectancy.
There is gap exist between the aboriginal and non- aboriginal people in life expectancy and health status. Moreover, government introduced the close the gap policy to provide equal health access between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people which is the positive impact on the health of aboriginal people. Moreover, closing the gap strategy focus on improving the life expectancy of aboriginal people (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018). Therefore, government has taken serious steps to close the health gap and investing money in health services. Nevertheless, there is only small changes in infant mortality rate and life expectancy of aboriginal people. Moreover, I think government has not been succeed to close life expectancy gap and health gap since past ten years, which is the negative impact for aboriginal people (Australian government, 2014). Government did not focus on social determinants of health and primary health care is the reason behind the unsuccessful to close the gap (Griew, 2008).
