Closing the Gap Policy Answer 2022

Running head: CLOSING THE GAP POLICY
CLOSING THE GAP POLICY
Name of Student:
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Author’s Note:

CLOSING THE GAP POLICY
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Answer number 1.
Closing the gap policy is one of the government approach, which goals to lower the
disadvantages amongst the aboriginal and Torres Strait islander individuals (Yu and Sampson
2016). It can be associated to the life expectancy, child death, educational accomplishment,
admittance to childhood education and occupation outcome. The main focus of the Australian
government behind development of the closing the gap policy is to promote health equality
among the entire population which has included that indigenous peoples (Australian Government
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 2019.
The establishment of the close the gap policy took place in the year 2005, in account of
the release of social justice report 2005 (Roth and Goff, 2019). The report focused on maintain
equality for aboriginal peoples within the period of 25 years (Australian Parliament 2019). The
closing the gap campaign was launched in 2007 when national indigenous health equality
responded to issue of health inequality. The council of Australian government (COAG) has
included the indigenous people by considering health disparity experienced by them. It was
noticed that poor health outcome are essentially the cause of structural factors like racism, poor
quality of house, social determinants and access to health service (Whatmore et al. 2019). It is
reported that Australian bureau of statistic (2006) that 34.5% of population in Australia belongs
to indigenous, which 13.9% of people are affected by poor health outcome and undergo lethal
illness like cardiovascular complication, diabetes and kidney failure. If the government focus to
address the quality of health of population over time, there was the need to close the gap of
inequality in population of Australia. Hence, it led to creation of closing the gap policy, which
was signed in the year 2008 (WHO 2007).

CLOSING THE GAP POLICY
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The major significance of the CTG policy is that it helps to improve the quality of life
and health of the aboriginal population of Australia. It will benefit to establish early infancy
education and safe communities. The policy will assist in lowering the rate of mortality and
promote health equality (Markham, Jordan and Howard-Wagner, 2018).
From the report of Javid, Hyett and Homer (2019) it was stated that the progress of CTG
policy has faced many barrier and challenges. For example inadequate funding, lack of
awareness about the bulkbilling practice among indigenous people, lack of adequate strength of
indigenous people to take on closing the gap policy.
Answer number 2.
It can be inferred from the case study, the long-term consequence of the diabetes in the
health of the Judy. The three social determinants of health are described as follow:
The first social determinant is lack of education. It is evident that diabetes need to be self-
manage to control the blood glucose level by physical activity or balanced diet. It is evident that
in 2015, 78.9% of aboriginals have acquired proper education in comparison with 98.7% non-
aboriginals (Australian Bureau of Statistic, 2016). However, due to lack of proper education
people end up developing diabetic foot ulcer that is the case of Judy (Reading and Greenwood
2018). It is also note that in 2017, the death rate 976.3 per 100,000 aboriginal’s peoples
(Australian Bureau of Statistic, 2016). As per the CTG policy, whose target is to lower the death
rate and increase the life prospect of aboriginal people by focusing on educating the aboriginal
peoples (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018). The gap in education is address by the
building educational institution in the community and arranging health campaign to aware the
people about disease self-management.