Developing a Rights-Based Approach to a Public Health Issue

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Running head: Assessment item 3
ASSESSMENT ITEM 3:
DEVELOPING A RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH TO A PUBLIC
HEALTH ISSUE

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Assessment item 3
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background................................................................................................................................3
Strategy to ensure rights-based approach...................................................................................4
Potential challenges for implementation....................................................................................6
Sustainability, evaluation, and monitoring.................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Reference list............................................................................................................................10

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Assessment item 3
Introduction
Mental health issue is a serious problem that is affecting indigenous Australians. Although,
this group of population in Australia suffers from various other health issues like diabetes in
this report main focus of discussion is mental health. Greater than 30% of aboriginal people
are suffering from some kind of mental health distress. Risk of mental distress like dementia
is higher in Aboriginal people living in remote areas. In this report, strategies for ensuring
proper approach has been discussed that can help to combat this serious public health issue.
Moreover, different challenges and evaluation procedure have been discussed in a proper
way.
Background
The population that is impacted by mental health issue is indigenous Australians, which
includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. History of this group began around 65000
years before and they arrived in Australia from Asia and Indonesia (Frank & Pollack, 2017).
It is estimated that aboriginal population is around 300,000 to 1,000,000. This indigenous
group thrives upon natural environment and does hunting as well as farming for collection of
good. Above 30% of this population is suffering from various psychological issues, which
includes dementia and depression.
Mental health cases have increased dramatically among this population of Australia. About
12.4% of indigenous Australians whose age is 45 years are suffering from dementia, which is
much greater than non-indigenous people. Rate of suicide and other psychological problems
are increasing among this group of people. This group of people is facing discrimination and
devoid of other human rights. In addition, they are also facing difficulty regarding the
conflicts of demands of modernity and tradition. Different other factors that give rise to

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Assessment item 3
mental illness are racism, violation, and subjection to mental trauma (Povey et al. 2016). Loss
of identity and impact on culture also causes mental illness among indigenous Australians.
However, different approaches made by Australian human rights commission have failed to
improve their condition. Different other policies like mental health first aid training program
and youth mental health partnership have also been taken by government to improve their
mental conditions. Different risk factor of mental illness is tried to reduce by government of
Australia by forming different programs like alcohol and drug counseling.
Strategy to ensure rights-based approach
For addressing the current issue among indigenous Australians and integrative right based
strategy can be designed that will contain both policies and advocacy. This can be done by
forming a partnership between Australian human rights commission, government of
Australia and World Federation for mental health (WFMH). This integrated forum can
take a strategy of tackling different causes that impact on mental health. Educating
indigenous people and spreading awareness regarding different policies is the main aim of
this strategy. As opined by Lewis et al. (2019), educating a community is necessary to
discard malpractices like discrimination and social violation. This strategy is a combined
approach that can help to implement different policies, which can help to reduce different
causes of mental issue. Success of this strategy can be gained by equal participation of all
related organization in this strategy. They need to work collaboratively and implement
policies in a proper way.
This joint forum can conduct proper communication and supply essential information
regarding different social rights of indigenous people of Australia. As stated by Compton &
Shim (2015), effective participation and engagement of audience can help to gain success in
any right-based approach. After forming a leadership team, different care groups must be