Closing The Gap Child Mortality PDF

Closing the gap- child
mortality

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BODY..............................................................................................................................................1
Tracking closing the gap target...................................................................................................1
Strategies used to ensure target is met........................................................................................3
Suggestions for meeting the target..............................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Child mortality is a serious issues within Indigenous Australians, as they are more likely
to have an early death due to various illnesses and lack of treatments. A target has been
introduced by Council of Australian Governments, in which child mortality of Indigenous
children below the age of 5 years would halve the gap in rates of mortality before 2018 (Ring
and et.al., 2016). This is an important step that has been initiated as their death is grieved by
parents, families and Indigenous Australian community for a long period of time. Health is the
physical and mental well-being of an individual with regard to social, emotional and cultural
welfare. This enables people to live to their fullest potential. This target will be tracked so that
strategies can be analysed and it can be determined whether it has been effective or not.
BODY
Tracking closing the gap target
Australian government had created a target where in, child mortality rate of Indigenous
Australians would be halved by 2018. As per the data analysed, it has been observed that
between 1998 to 2016, the rate has declined by about 35% and the gap has been narrowed down
by 32% as well. But this has not helped much in closing the gap (Infancy and Early Childhood,
2017). 82% of Indigenous child deaths have occurred in children under the age of 1, which is 1.9
times more than non Indigenous children and 53% of these deaths were due to perinatal
conditions that include birth trauma, pregnancy complications, respiratory or cardiovascular
disorders (Victora and et.al., 2016). Tracking the target has shown that even though mortality
rates have reduced by 66.7% between 1998 to 2016, it has slowed down since 2008. There has
only been a decline of 11.5%, which interprets that Australian Government is unable to meet the
target successfully.
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