Closing the Gap: Understanding the Health Disparities among Aboriginal Individuals

Running head: CLOSING GAP
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
CLOSING GAP
In module 1, an issue raised by professor Michael Marmot caught my attention is closing
the gap. The work of Professor Michael Marmot showed that reasons for this health gap of the
Aboriginal individuals are much bigger than any other health issues and it has a deep connection
with the social determinants (Braveman, 2014).
This part of the assignment would provide a description of my feelings about the issue
arise in the class about the stolen generation. Before listening to the piece of information shared
by professor Marmot, I was unaware of the health gaps and I had an impression that Aboriginal
individuals do not look after the health and because of negligence and poor life choices they
developed certain disease which reduced the life expectancy of the individuals and increases
mortality of rate of Aboriginals. Therefore, I have never given so much thought about this issue.
While professor was talking about the history, policy, and statistics related to the social
determinants such as poverty, unemployment, disadvantages, racism are related to the health
gaps I gained an understanding of the health issues. I had inadequate knowledge of social
determinants but I was completely unaware that these determinants affect the wellbeing of the
individuals. Although I never experienced issues related to social determinists, I can feel how
social determinants can affect wellbeing Aboriginal individuals.
The experience of gathering information is optimistic information for me since I was
able to know that how factors social determinants affect the not only this generation but also next
generation and it reformed my beliefs. The social determinants not only affecting one country
but also affect other countries regardless of sociodemographic status (George et al., 2017). I did
not consider these factors played a huge role in the development of the gaps which can be
reduced by closing the gap strategy. After gaining the knowledge of the Aboriginal individuals,
I became more mindful about my opinion which was formed based on the perception I had