Closing the Gap: A Policy for Improving Indigenous Health in Australia

Running head: HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1HEALTHCARE
Introduction
The health status of the indigenous Australian have been the topic of debate for centuries.
There lies strong evidence regarding the fact that indigenous population of the country
experience greater risk of disease as compared to the non-indigenous population. According to
the data from the hospital, the indigenous people do not get equivalent care and the victims of
discrimination (Altman, Biddle & Hunter, 2018). The government of Australia has thus
committed towards the achievement of equality in terms of stats of health and life expectancy for
the indigenous people of Australia by the year 2031. The thesis statement of the essay argues
with the effectiveness of the governmental policy. The essay will explore the public health,
‘Closing the Gap’; towards the improvement of the health status of the indigenous Australians.
Discussion
Closing the Gap Strategy, COAG was developed by the government of Australia
following the sign of the close the gap statement of Intent at March 2008. The council of the
Australian governments including the leaders of the federal, territory and state committed to this
strategy for closing the gap among the health status of the indigenous and the non-indigenous
population in Australia. Closing the gap is the governmental strategy aiming to reduction of the
disadvantage among the aboriginal and the Torres Strait islander population in the context of
their life expectancy, mortality rate among the children and the aged population within the
community (Georges et al., 2017). Furthermore closing the gap was developed in response to the
call of the report of the social justice of 2005 and the campaign of the close the gap social justice.
The historical context of the policy can be illustrated a the formal commitment that is made by
the government of Australia for the achievement of the health equality of the aboriginal and the

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Torres strait islander people within the range of 25 years. Apart from the life expectancy, access
to health care habits and the , mortality rates, this strategy of the government of nation was
developed for targeting the educational achievement and the employment outcomes together
with the addressing the racism and the colonialism faced or experienced by the aboriginal and
Torres strait islander people n Australia.
Closing the Gap is the overarching strategy of the nation for overcoming the persistent
disadvantages by the indigenous community of people in Australia (Cashman et al., 2016). The
policy has in total six of key goals throughout the social and health policy spectrum with the
collaboration of the commonwealth Government which is held accountable for the progress via
the annual reports of the public release (Lawton et al., 2015). There has been significant gain in
some areas due to the result of the concerned efforts for overcoming the disparities that the
indigenous community people had been facing, though no progress has been reported regarding
closing the gap in the context of life expectancy among the aboriginal Australians and non-
aboriginal people.
Source – (Angell, Eades & Jan, 2017)
The figure above illustrate progress of the targets of the policy of Closing the gap
towards overcoming the disadvantages and the challenges faced by the aboriginals and Torres