Aboriginal Mental Health

It is common knowledge that there is a life expectancy gap when comparing the life span of Aboriginal people and other Australians, so much so that the gap is known to be at least ten years. A definition if Indigenous mental health which is culturally accepted is known as social and emotion wellbeing, which includes mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, community, family, cultural and country wellbeing. An unbalance to this can often cause traumas which can be life changing and devastating to communities. It is known that Aboriginal Australians due to consequences of their exposure to traumatic events are one of the most traumatised people in the world with these events being felt throughout generations resulting in poor psychosocial health

emphasis was on relationships to family, group and country rather than the development of an

Aboriginal Health and Health Care The article is about aboriginal health and health disparities or gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal. The significant key points in the article includes aboriginal are the poorest people in Canada. Aboriginals suffer from higher rates of chronic diseases, have high infant mortality rate, shorter lifespans, and also experience higher rates of domestic violence as well as sexual assault than non-aboriginal people.

According to the 2011 census, there were 548,370 Indigenous people living in Australia making up 2.5% of the Australian population. It is known that many health inequalities occur between the indigenous and non-indigenous population, with indigenous people being more likely to experience a reduced quality of life. The differences between the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the broader Australian population occur for a number of different reasons including differing levels of education, geographical location and genetics. Indigenous Australians have lower life expectancy than non-Indigenous Australians. In 2007 the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous life expectancy was 11.5 years for males and 9.7 years for females.

Aboriginal people represent less than 3% of the total population in BC. Yet, they account for more than 9% of all suicides in BC (Chandler). The numbers of suicides amongst aboriginal youth are even more alarming – nearly one-fourth of all youth suicides in BC are committed by aboriginals and more than half of all aboriginal suicides are committed by youth (Chandler). The fact that indigenous communities in Canada have the highest rate of suicide of any culturally identifiable group in the world implies that these alarming statistics may not solely be a result of aboriginal communities belonging to a minority cultural group. I will attempt to build a speculative hypothesis behind the significantly high suicide rates amongst aboriginal

discrimination, higher mortality rates, and abuse) and historical conditions (e.g. stolen generation, destruction of culture), making the risk for mental health problems considerably high. • The high rate of domestic violence and sexual or physical assaults against Aboriginal women had increased the rate of depression to 50% in Aboriginal women population, which can lead to shorter lifespan in Aboriginal women. • The suicide rate is higher than the Australian standard. This is particularly high for young men in custody due to, poor cultural understanding, poor linkages and co-ordination across the system, health service provider’s attitudes and practice, communication barriers and issues and racism. • Rates of self-harm, mental illness and harmful substance abuse are higher in the Indigenous population.

The Centre for Suicide Prevention, also known as the CSP is an education centre with the largest known English language library devoted to the collection and publication of suicide prevention and intervention resources. They provide many different resources on the topic of suicide with information in risk factors, stats, programs and more. This source perfectly fits my chosen topic. This article was published in June 2013, which was fairly recent, therefore it being relevant to my research. I decided to select this source because it gave me exactly what I was looking for in order to have a successful research paper. It will be most helpful to the concrete data of my essay. This article gives an anthropological view on suicide within the Aboriginal community. This article was able to give an insight on how Aboriginals were alienated and taken away from their culture, therefore causing

In addition, the program offered healing to the community still healing from the legacy of colonialism. If the federal government kept funding the suicide prevention program there would not have been a spike in suicide rates in the community. Furthermore, a psychologist at the University of Victoria, Christopher Lalonde, believes the key to stopping suicides is rooted in the communities (McCue, 2016). From two decades of researching, he found that the communities that are the least “culturally healthy” have a higher rate of youth suicide (McCue, 2016). Also, the mental wellness of aboriginal youths is not only about being mentally healthy but also having a balance between Aboriginal youths’ families, communities, and the environment (Khan, 2008). Therefore, it will be better that Aboriginal suicide prevention programs are created by Aboriginal communities to target the prevalence issues in their communities with some assistance from the government to set it up and fund

It is no secret that the Native American and Alaska Native (NA/AN) population is one of the most overlooked and underserved communities in America. The physical health disparities that plague NA/ANs (diabetes, tuberculosis, obesity, etc) are well-documented.1 However, less data is readily available on the mental health challenges that NA/AN populations face. Recent news has highlighted the pressing need to study these issues, especially in light of the spike in suicides among youth occurring on NA/AN reservations.2 Furthermore, even less information is available with regards to NA/AN children and the mental health disparities they face, although more literature has been published in the last two decades that provide new insights into this issue.3

In Australia suicide is the leading cause of death among young people (Khan & Francis, 2015). According to an Australian national survey conducted, 7.3 million or 43% of Australians between the ages of 16 & 85 will experience some form of mental health related condition during their lifetime. This may include anxiety, depression and drug misuse. Mental health issues are also very costly for the healthcare system. These issues are costing the Australian government alone, more than 6 billion dollars per year (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2013). To help reduce these costs, more education and promotion needs to be provided when caring for an adolescent with mental health issues, and strength-based models of care need

Native Americans have been neglected, abused, and tormented since the 1700’s when their land was abruptly invaded by Europeans. Europeans declared this “unknown” territory to be their property from then forward and did anything and everything to make sure this would happen. This included forced assimilation, where Natives were stripped of their cultural traditions and forced to assimilate to an english speaking, westernized culture (McLeigh, 2010). This included taking children from their families and sending them to boarding school to learn a new language, new cultural traditions, and new religious practices. Starting in 1860 and lasting until 1970, children were taken from their families at a young age and often lost touch with their family

Suicide Among the Aboriginal Communities in Canada There comes a point in a person’s life when they are unable to escape from problems or they do not have the strengths to fight them. This sense of hopelessness and loss is something which many Aboriginal people living in Canada experience on a daily basis and it has ultimately resulted in the devastatingly high suicide rates today. Suicide has become a very serious problem in Canada as Aboriginals are three times more likely to commit suicide than the average Canadians and Inuits are eleven times more likely. Suicide within the Aboriginal groups is rooted in a history of racist and ethnocentric policies.

It is well-known that the health issue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been constantly discussed and analysed up to the present. Indigenous Australian experience poorer health outcome compare to other population in Australian, and also they experienced significantly higher rates of mental illness within their communities, and the suicide rate approximately more than double higher than for the general population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare,2009). The purpose of this essay is to discuss the factor that associated with higher rate of mental illness and suicide behavior regard to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the concept of cultural, social and emotional well-being that triggers this phenomenon.

A major issue within New Zealand is the health differences between Maori and non-Maori. The health experience of Maori is significantly different due to lifestyle factors and marginalisation. To achieve the best health outcome for all ethnicities, health services need to treat everyone equally regardless of the individual’s lifestyle factors, Maori women and men have different health experiences due to the sex difference and reproductive factors (Women’s Health Action, 2014). This essay will discuss the development of mental health among Maori women in comparison to non-Maori women and the effects of marginalisation and housing on the health of Maori. This essay will also include a general description of women’s health as a whole. With research I will determine and explain the health disparities between non-Maori and Maori and the underlying factors that cause certain health outcomes.

Mental health has always been identified as one of the main areas for action in the National Health Priority Areas (National Health and Medical Research Council 2016), and depression is one of the most prevalent chronic conditions amongst the young Australians (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2017). Depression is a debilitating condition that substantially impairs individuals’ ability to function and cope with their daily life due to the experience of negative feelings (NHMRC 2016). Also, depression and suicidality have a close correlation as eighty percent of reported suicide incident was due to the burden of depression (World Health Organization 2017), and suicide is the second leading cause of death in youths in Australia (Reddy 2010). Moreover, depression can be inherited in a family through either biological or psychological way (Rahman et al. 2008); hence, youths who have the family with depression history tend to be more vulnerable and have a higher chance to get depression comparing with children from healthy family (Rice 2010). Therefore, this expo is set up for raising community awareness in the burden of depression and reducing the growth of emotional and developmental dysfunction in youths and their families through providing a comprehensive research study in related the health problem and proven intervention strategies.