Community Health Assessment of the Aboriginal Older Adults living in Western Australia 2022

Running head: COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 1
Community Health Assessment of the Aboriginal Older Adults living in Western Australia
Name of Author
Institution
Date of Submission

COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 2
Community Health Assessment of the Aboriginal Older Adults living in Western Australia
Introduction
Community health assessment is critical towards assessing the health of a society.
Western Australia is inhabited people of varied backgrounds and affiliations. The Aboriginals
living in Western Australia will be of particular interest to this paper. For a long time, the
inequality and gaps in healthcare was witnessed among the Aboriginals relative to the Non-
Aboriginal population (Sabbioni et al., 2018). The assessment would provide a framework that
would enable policymakers and healthcare professionals to improve the quality of health of older
adults among the Aboriginal population in Western Australia (Tsou et al., 2018). This paper will
be based on literature review of both journals and government publications about the Aboriginals
in Western Australia. This paper targets peers, scholars and educators as audience. This paper
will determine the demographics related to older adults among the Aboriginals living in Western
Australia. Further, it will assess the health status of the Aboriginals as well as their social health
determinants. Lastly, the report would indicate a possible health care issue that would require a
health promotion later.
Demographics
The population of Aboriginals in Western Australia is about 3.9% of the total population.
The Aboriginal community is associated with lower life expectancy relative to other populations
in Western Australia. Typically, older adults aged 65 years and above among the Aboriginal
people represent only 3.7% of the total Aboriginal population. Comparatively, older adults aged

COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 3
65 years and above represent 14 % among the non-Aboriginal population. These statistics
indicate a huge disparity in health care experiences and services. The disparity also indicates the
early onset as well as poor management of long-term chronic diseases (AMHMAC, 2017).
Statistics also indicate that the incidences of chronic health conditions are higher among
the Aboriginal populations in Western Australia than other non-Aboriginal populations (Calma
et al., 2017). The hospitalization rates for chronic disease relates to health complications in
Western Australia is 4.3 times higher than that for Non-Aboriginal people within the same
region. In effect, the highest death rate from chronic diseases in Western Australia is from the
Aboriginal population. Chronic diseases include diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and kidney-
related complications. The life span of Aboriginals is approximately 14 years lower than that of
other populations in Western Australia. Females among the aboriginals have a lifespan of about
67 years, while men have an average lifespan of 61 years (AMHMAC, 2017).
Health Issues
The health issues affecting the Aboriginal population in Western Australia have led to
low life expectancy, and high mortality rates as well as increased incidences of self-harm. The
experiences of the Aboriginal people are different from those of the Non-Aboriginal populations
in Western Australia. The Aboriginals are associated with poor health experiences from an early
age (Calma et al., 2017). This leads to aging problems early in life relative to other non-
Aboriginals in Western Australia, explaining the low life expectancy among them. The
premature aging and high prevalence of chronic diseases place the Aboriginal community a
priority for targeted health policies that can improve their health and wellbeing like other Non-
Aboriginal populations in Western Australia (Loh et al., 2016). There is a need by the State

COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 4
department of health to review the delivery and planning of health services to take into account
the social and cultural needs of this vulnerable population.
Chronic diseases hold the dominant percentage of disease burden in Western Australia.
The chronic diseases affecting the Aboriginals largely are often avoidable and can be controlled
to reduce the high hospitalization rates (Lindeman et al., 2017). Some of the major ailments
affecting the Aboriginals in Western Australia include high blood pressure, diabetes,
cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and kidney diseases. It is worth highlighting that most of the
chronic diseases begin at a relatively younger age among the Aboriginals compared to Non-
aboriginals. Consequently, the incidence of death caused by the chronic diseases is higher among
Aboriginals than non-Aboriginals ("Chronic diseases - Western Australia - Australian
Indigenous HealthInfoNet", 2020).
For a long time, the Aboriginal population has always complained about the lack of
effective and high quality of culturally sensitive health services (Sabbioni et al., 2018). Most of
the statistics for poor health outcomes in Western Australia among the Aboriginals can be
attributed to lack of culturally-competent health services. Further, there is relatively low literacy
among the Aboriginals relative to other non-Aboriginal communities; the disparity has ensured
that there are less healthcare workers from the Aboriginal community. Also, illiteracy affects the
implementation of health policies effectively, especially for the aboriginals living in remote
places (Durey et al., 2016). The distribution of Aboriginals in Western Australia is not uniform.
They live in towns, remote, rural, and isolated areas across the region. There is a close cultural
affiliation in relation to the older adults among the Aboriginals. As such, they tend to be