Impact of Climate Change on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health

This essay discusses the impact of climate change on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It covers the causes and effects of climate change, the healthcare services available, and the policies in place to address the issue.

NUR1204 Aboriginal
and Torres Strait
Islander Health

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are the Australian who have impact of climate change
on their status. Climate change is highly effective and can have different consciences when it is
not taken in consideration. Climate change have direct impact on individual lifestyle and their
health and others. In this, it is necessary to understand the impact of climate change on aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander health and their wellbeing. In this essay, there is discussion about the
different effective of climate change on the Aboriginal and Torres Island Islander health and
their wellbeing. There is need to ensure about different causes and effect which leads to create
impact on individual health. This may include due to living in specific area which includes near
costal area or other place with adopted in specific climate. There is also discussion about the how
climate change affect people and communities. It also includes the implication for policy for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services (Walker, 2019).
MAIN BODY
Climate change have high impact on every individual which includes the health and change
in lifestyle. This can lead to create high impact on service delivery and ensure about getting
better health and wellbeing. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander get highly impacted due to
change in the climate. This can understand through people who are living at the coastal area and
due to change in climate it leads to increase the sea level that make people to get off from their
place. This lead to create high negative impact on their lifestyle. There is also need to take care
about the effective response which are associated with taking care of their health and wellbeing.
It is essential to ensure about taking care of aboriginal health. Here, it is necessary to deliver
better and effective response who should take in consideration about taking care of effective
health. There is various impact on Aboriginal and Torres Island Islander which includes the risk
of flood, increased risk of diseases, increase in temperature, health inequality, financial burden,
droughts, limited access to healthcare, food availability, flood and many more. Due to climate
change there is chance of displacement which are associated with taking care of effective
response which are associated with ensure about possessing good health. Due to change in
climate and needed to off their place, it creates the financial burden to them which impact the
access to healthcare services that leads to impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Due to facing the financial burden it also leads to create social and emotional issues where they

are not able to fulfil their basis demand which leads to create social and emotional issues. Due to
not able to get good access to healthcare it can lead to impact their social and emotional
wellbeing. Climate change create risk of displacement, high temperature increases the risk to
occur different disease and health issues. This can have high impact on individual health that
leads to risk of social impact and affect their wellbeing.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are vulnerable to impact of climate change.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are who are living in the remote parts of Australia leads to
create increase in temperature which reduces the food availability which is interrelated with
health and wellbeing. This can also lead to create negative impact on the healthcare services
which increases the burden due to not having good health. Climate change have impact on the
quality of service where nursing staff should ensure about share information and knowledge
which can help to adopt towards the climate change and provide better health and wellbeing.
There are some of the effect which includes higher temperature, fire seasons, extreme droughts,
floods and others. Change in climate leads to create high burden to the healthcare premises
which are associated with negative health impact. There are different healthcare services are
available for the aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander which are effective to delivery better
healthcare service which are associated with injuries, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease
and musculoskeletal condition (Cronin, 2018). These are associated disease where climate
change is also a factor. There are various healthcare services which are contributing to the
Aboriginal health which may include the annual health check-up, ear health and hearing support,
eye health and vision support, chronic disease support, evaluation and medicare and medicines.
There are some of the policy which includes Protection policy, Assimilation Policy (1951-1962),
NACCHO and others which are effective for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people health.
This may include the practical change within individual and communities where people are
learning about getting adopted to the climate and its changes. Torres Islander people need to get
better healthcare treatment that can help in getting better delivery of healthcare services that can
help to improve better health. There is need to ensure about effective response towards the access
to healthcare services that gets affect due to climate change. Aboriginal community controlled
health organisation are able to provide better care and support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people where they should also improve the service delivery and also awareness people
about adopting towards the climate change (Hall et. al., 2021). Here, people are learning about

getting early warning sign and processes which are associated with taking care of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander that can help to get better and effective response towards managing energy
use and getting adopted towards high temperature and use other resources which can help to deal
effectively with the impact of climate change (Lansbury Hall et. al., 2022). Australian
government is trying their best through using government research and development programs
which includes advanced research project agency which can use their technology to learn and
utilise those of commercial use that can help during the climate change and reduce and minimize
the negative impact of climate change (Purcell et. al., 2018).
There is high impact of climate change on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people. This can also impact on the adoption which are associated with change in the risk of
different health related issues. There is risk to food availability which is due to increase in the
temperature which includes the climate change. There is also impact as the flood in the coastal
area due to heavy rain. There is also risk of draught due to increasing the temperature. It can also
cause different type of disease and increase the health burden to healthcare premises (Smith,
2019). There are some of the issues which are faced by the people who are facing difficulty in
access to the healthcare premises which include the financial issues, not lack of knowledge and
difficult to access to healthcare due to displacement. Healthcare professional should insist them
to take better care and treatment and use the preventive measures that can allow them to improve
their health and avoid the risk of climate change impact on their health and wellbeing. Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people are facing difficulties from longer duration which lead to create
high negative health and wellbeing where they need to focus on getting adopted towards the
climate change through using different resources which are effective to improve their health and
wellbeing through minimising negative impact of climate change. Through access to healthcare
service, it can allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander to get better and effective response
towards improving their health and wellbeing (Sly et. al., 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can conclude that there is high impact of climate change on
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They may face different difficulties like due to
high temperature, rising of sea level and others. These are associated with financial burden that
lead to impact the access to healthcare services. It can also impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people and their health and wellbeing. It also impacts social and emotional wellbeing

where they are not able to fulfil their basic needs. In this essay, there is discussion about the
impact of climate change on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people health and
wellbeing. In this essay, there is discussion about the various causes which can lead to create the
negative impact of climate change on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. There is also
discussion about the healthcare services which are effective to provide better health and
wellbeing.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cronin, J., Anandarajah, G., & Dessens, O. (2018). Climate change impacts on the energy
system: a review of trends and gaps. Climatic change, 151(2), 79-93.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2265-4
Hall, N. L., Grodecki, H., Jackson, G., Go Sam, C., Milligan, B., Blake, C., ... & Selvey, L.
(2021). Drinking water delivery in the outer Torres Strait Islands: A case study
addressing sustainable water issues in remote Indigenous communities. Australasian
Journal of Water Resources, 25(1), 80-89.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13241583.2021.1932280
Lansbury Hall, N., & Crosby, L. (2022). Climate change impacts on health in remote indigenous
communities in Australia. International Journal of Environmental Health
Research, 32(3), 487-502. https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2020.1777948
Purcell, R., & McGirr, J. (2018). Rural health service managers' perspectives on preparing rural
health services for climate change. Australian journal of rural health, 26(1), 20-25.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajr.12374
Sly, P. D., & Holt, P. G. (2018). Pollution, climate change, and childhood asthma in
Australia. The Medical journal of Australia, 208(7), 297-98. https://doi:
10.5694/mja17.01145
Smith, D. C. (2019). Landmark climate change-related judicial decisions handed down in the
Netherlands and Australia: a preview of what’s to come?. Journal of Energy & Natural
Resources Law, 37(2), 145-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646811.2019.1587272
Walker, J. (2019). Rural health inequities and the impact of climate change. Australian Journal
of Rural Health, 27(6), 583-584. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajr.12595