Low Birth Weight Essay

The following report will focus on the health plan Koolin Balit: Victorian Government strategic directions for Aboriginal health 2012-2022 (Koolin Balit). This report will firstly provide an overview of Koolin Balit and will discuss the selected health plan Key Priority Area Two: Healthy Childhood. The at-risks groups pre-school and primary school aged Aboriginal children affected by the priority area will then be discussed. There are three Determinants of Health (DOH) that will be focused on throughout the report, these being education, food (access to and distribution) and access to care and health services (Keleher & MacDougall, 2016). Evidence will be used throughout the report to support the DOH and discuss the relevance of the DOH to Key Priority Area Two: Healthy Childhood.

The following report will explain what “Koolin Balit” outlines and its specific objectives to reach the ultimate goal: to improve Aboriginal health in Victoria over the period of the next ten years, as a strategic administration conducted by the Victorian government. This report will then address one of its priority areas, “A healthy start to life” which is designated to improve the health conditions of Aboriginal mothers and their infants that are deemed two at-risk groups. Lastly, three specific determinants of health related to the specific priority area: early life, addiction and social support will be amplified how they connect with this priority area and related health outcomes for aboriginal babies.

Approximately 2.5% of the Australian population is made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, however these people experience much higher levels of ill-health and premature death rates than the rest of the Australian population. Gathering sufficient information is difficult

Indigenous people accounted for 3.1% of the total Australian population (HealthInfoNet, n.d.). Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginal are far more likely to die than other Australians before they are old. According to the most recent estimates, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal men born in 2010 to 2012 are likely to live up to 69 years old and are about 10 years less than other Australian men. Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal women born in 2010 to 2012 are likely to live up to 74 years, almost 10 years less than other Australian women (HealthInfoNet, n.d.). Describe the nature and extent

These include: differences in the social determinants of health, including lower levels of education, employment, income and poorer quality housing, on average, compared with non-Indigenous Australians, differences in behavioural and biomedical risk factors such as higher rates of smoking and risky alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, and higher rates of high blood pressure for ATSI Australians, the greater difficulty that ATSI people have in accessing affordable and culturally appropriate health services that are in close proximity. Progress on the two measures of ATSI health in the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Closing the Gap targets: life expectancy and child mortality. Three commonly used measures of how healthy ATSI Australians are include: self-assessed health rating; disability and prevalence of major long-term conditions; and potentially avoidable deaths. Life expectancy Life expectancy at birth is a measure of how long a newborn baby is expected to live on average, given the currently noticed pattern of mortality in the ATSI

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.

The 2014 AIHW report on ‘Aboriginal health and welfare emphasizes that the social determinants mentioned above contribute to their poor maintaining of healthy lifestyle choices. For example they have high rates of tobacco use, alcohol consumption, illicit drug use, overweight and obesity, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, exposure to violence and poor housing conditions all of which exemplify the destructive impact that determinants of inequity have in relation to their poor standards of health and living. Data from a number of sources indicate that across a range of socioeconomic and health related indicators the Indigenous population is disadvantaged. Evidence suggests the gaps in access to primary health care and specialist services persist, for geographical, social and cultural reasons, mainstream services are not always accessible to, or are the most appropriate provider of health care for, Indigenous Australians. Due to aboriginals cultural background they may experience difficulty in accessing health facilities and services due to a number of reasons such as cultural beliefs about medical treatment or language difficulty due to English being their 2nd language.

Methodology I plan on conducting an extensive literature review of existing papers on the social and economic determinants of health of Indigenous people in Australia. There could be limited work on the social determinants of health in Indigenous populations in Australia, I would hope to supplement this by looking at data from other countries with similar colonization histories. To answer the following guidance questions: - Are there particular social determinants of health in Australia’s indigenous population? - Is there a link between the current inequalities in health of indigenous people and historical issues like colonization? - Which health policies should be given priority to reduce health inequalities between the general population and Australia’s indigenous population?

Australia is considered one of the safest and best countries to live (OECD, 2016). For instance, Australia exhibits higher life expectancies (80.3 years for males and 84.5 years for females), lower mortality rates (5.4 per 1000 live births), high-quality education and health practices and many employment opportunities (ABS, 2015). However, there are wide disparities in life expectancy, mortality rates, heath outcomes, education and employment for indigenous people (Holland, 2014).For example, life expectancy at birth for indigenous population is 10.6 years lower than that of the non-indigenous male population and 9.5 years for females (ABS, 2015). The mortality rate for the indigenous

hrough historical and socio-political context, it has caused a ‘gap’ between indigenous children’s health and other parts of the country. The ‘gap’, refers to the immense health and life-expectation inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This inequality includes higher rates of infant mortality, shorter life expectancy, poorer health and lower levels of education and employment. One of the key issues and concerns in aboriginal children’s health in remote and urban areas is obesity. The 2004-2005 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) found that obesity is becoming an increasing problem in the Indigenous population.(National Audit Office.

Aboriginal people have the highest rates of ill health than any other group in Australia. The Australian Bureau Of Statistic (ABS) estimates that there are between 418,800 and 476,900 indigenous people in Australia (Better Health Channel: Aboriginal Health Issues ). Improving the health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has been a longstanding challenge for governments in Australia. Indigenous people as a whole, experience disproportionate levels of disadvantage and poorer health compared with other Australians, there is a definite relationship between social disadvantages experienced by Indigenous people and their current health status. These social disadvantages, directly related to dispossession and characterised by

It is acknowledged in Closing the gap clearinghouse that Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population experience significant levels of health inequality when compared to non-Indigenous Australians across many sectors (Baum et al. 2013, p. 2). This disparity is prominently evident through discordance in the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) data concerning Indigenous health, as well as many other literature, and is contributed to by many interconnected and interdependent social determinants of health negatively affecting this minority. The focal point of this research has been identifying the main ‘upstream’ social determinants – also referred to as ‘distal’ determinants – and thoroughly investigating their impact on Indigenous health.

The social determinants of health are described as the condition of daily living in which determines the individual’s chances of maintaining optimum health (Department of Health and Human Services 2015). In Australia, the health inequality between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is noted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have the largest disparity in the world (Markwick et al. 2014). Statistically, the life expectancy for indigenous Australians who are born in 2010-2012 is estimated to be 10.6 years lower when compared to non-indigenous Australians (Markwick et al. 2014). Social determinants such as employment and social exclusion may contribute to the major difference in the health status between the indigenous and non-indigenous Australians (Markwick et al. 2014). This essay will focus on discussing how having employment and social exclusion has led to the health inequalities between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, and how indigenous healthcare nurses can address these determinants in the care they provide in the indigenous community setting.

What might explain these statistics, or at least serve as correlations, are the determinants of health. If the reader is not familiar with the determinants of health, the World Health Organisation (WHO) provides an explanation of them. In essence, these health determinants are factors that have significant impact upon one’s health. The main determinants for health are: socioeconomic status, where the rich and upper classes tend to be healthier; education, where low education is linked to stress, lower self-esteem and poorer health choices; environment, where purer air, cleaner water, healthier workplaces and better housing contribute to being healthier; health services, where access to services and proper equipment all contribute to health; as well as gender, genetics, culture and social behaviour (WHO, 2016). As there are so health determinants, where essays can be written on one alone, it is not within the scope of this essay to critically analyse each determinant for Indigenous Australians. With this in mind, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2014) documents an extensive list of data for Indigenous health, most of which discusses issues which are out-of-scope for this analysis. What is relevant, however, is outlined next. Across the board, in 2011, the Indigenous population was younger than the non-Indigenous population due to high fertility and mortality rates with those

While some women who received no prenatal care had normal, uncomplicated births, others did not. Most of the women who did not receive adequate prenatal care gave birth to an underweight and underdeveloped infant. Among the benefits of early, comprehensive prenatal care are decreased risk of preterm deliveries and low birth weight (LBW)-both major predictors of infant morbidity and mortality. (Dixon, Cobb, Clarke, 2000). Preterm deliveries, deliveries prior to 37 weeks of gestation, have risen. Since the studies in 1987, which showed the rate of preterm deliveries as 6.9% of births, the 1997 rate shows an increase to 7.5%. Low birth weight, defined as an infant weighing less than 2500 grams (5lbs. 5oz) is often preceded by preterm delivery. Low