Health Promotion Activity on Mental Health Issues by Aboriginal Health Workers

Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION BY ABORIGINAL HEALTH WORKERS 1
Health Promotion Activity on Mental Health Issues by Aboriginal Health Workers
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

HEALTH PROMOTION BY ABORIGINAL HEALTH WORKERS 2
Aboriginal Health Workers and Primary Health Care
Primary health care is universally accessible health care made available for the
communities in various means that are acceptable to them and at an affordable cost. Nurses
working in the primary health care form an integral part of any nation’s health care system
and play a critical role in maintaining the socio-economical standard of the community
(Smolowitz et al., 2015). Indigenous health workers from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island
play a critical role in maintain the basic standard of healthcare for the special indigenous
community in the country. In Australia, indigenous workers are registered with the AHPRA-
Australian Health Practitioners Registration Agency (Cramer, Pugh, Slatyer, Twigg &
Robinson, 2018). One of the key health issues concerning the Aboriginal health workers is
the mental health of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous people are
more probable to suffer from depression and stress issues than the rest of Australians. The
following paper addresses the important health promotion tactics in accordance to the Ottawa
Charter for Health Promotion that the Aboriginal health workers can undertake and
implement to deal with the mental health issue of the indigenous people in Australia.
Discussion
Aboriginal Health Workers have the dedicated nursing role of providing primary
health care to the indigenous people, i.e. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They
come from the same indigenous descent and are accepted within the indigenous community.
They have universal characteristic of keeping the standard of Aboriginal primary health care
provision uplifted and work for the cultural safety and security of the indigenous people
(Topp, Edelman & Taylor, 2018). They play crucial role in health promotion, disease
inhibition & prevention, increasing local community health knowledge and providing a
holistic approach to primary health care. They also work as intermediary between the

HEALTH PROMOTION BY ABORIGINAL HEALTH WORKERS 3
government or non-government organization and the patient, for better communication and to
ensure proper health service is delivered to the patient.
Aboriginal health workers are very concerned with providing primary health care,
which significantly differs from primary care. Although both the terms- primary care and
primary health care are employed interchangeably and are related to first level of care &
contact, recent researches have concluded that they are two different entities. Primary care is
person-focused care, which is given over time, whereas primary health care are services that
are presented to the community as a whole (Rigg, Engelman & Ramirez, 2018). Primary care
requires sustained partnership with the patients, whereas, primary health care are generalized
services that adapted according to the population of the community. Primary health care
requires the professionals to meet specific requirements concerning the community and is an
approach of delivering spectrum of health services different from the traditional health care
system (Rigg, Engelman & Ramirez, 2018). Aboriginal health workers play important role,
which considered as a primary health care nursing role, as they are more concerned to
providing community based health care delivery. These health workers come from the same
community, which helps them in relating better to the patient, and provide better primary care
to the indigenous people. Aboriginal health workers or nurses play a critical role in ‘Closing
the Gap’ initiative from Government of Australia, where they act as intermediary between the
indigenous and non-indigenous population (Cashman, Allan, Clark, Butler, Massey &
Durrheim, 2016). As the nursing role played by the Aboriginal Health Workers is primarily
focused and limited to the community of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, they
are said to be an integral part of the Primary Health Care providing nursing group in Australia
(Schmidt, Campbell & McDermott, 2016).
The main client group of the Aboriginal health workers are the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people in Australia. The community contributes about 3.3 per cent of the total