Health Issues Faced by Indian Immigrants in Australia

This article discusses the health issues faced by Indian immigrants in Australia, focusing on the demographic patterns, health beliefs and practices, and social determinants of health. It covers topics such as the prevalence of Type-2 diabetes, mental health issues, and the use of traditional medicine. Desklib offers study material with solved assignments, essays, dissertations, and more.

Running head: INDIAN IMMIGRANTS IN AUSTRALIA
INDIAN IMMIGRANTS IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive summary
The following article is aiming for the community assessment of the Indian immigrants of
Australia and more specifically Victoria state. Australia is proven to be the fourth largest
Indian immigrant community in the whole world. This article details about the demographic,
health issues and social determinants of the Indian immigrant community. In the end, it can
be concluded that there are many varieties of religious factors can be found among, and there
are many health issues that are related to their cultural values and beliefs.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...........................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..............................................................................................................................................3
Demographic of the Indian immigrants:............................................................................................3
Health issues faced by Indians in Australia.......................................................................................5
Health beliefs and practices among the people..................................................................................6
Social determinants of health (SDoH)...............................................................................................6
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................................7
References..............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
This article is explaining the health issues relating to the Indian immigrants of
Australia. Indians were primarily introduced in Australia in the early eighteen century. Many
Indians come to Australia in search of a job opportunity or to study. During the nineteenth
century, the number of immigrants in Australia increased in huge amount. The number of
immigrants increases day by day. Data shows that during the time of 2011-12 the Indian
immigrants became the largest source of the permanent migrants of Australia. The number
suggested by the data is 15.7%. It is not justified to cover the total Indian immigrant
population in this article so narrowing down the analysis of this article is mainly focusing on
the Victoria. The number of Indian immigrants in Victoria is found to be 30,259. Among all
the diseases that are prevalent in the population Type-2 diabetes is one of the most common
disease. (Zheng et al.,2012). The following paragraphs will mainly focus on the demographic
pattern of the health issues, the nature of the health issues found in the immigrants and the
social determinants of health of immigrants of Victoria.
Discussion
Demographic of the Indian immigrants:
In the year 2006 census declared that there are 147,106 Indians who are residing in
Australia are Indian by birth. Among them, 79,025 people have the citizenship for Australia.
The main largest population of the Indian immigrants are mainly in new south whales consist
of immigrants around 57,156. The second position is declared by the Victoria State with
second largest demographic is of Indian immigrants with the number of 52,853 (Glover et al.,
2015). One of the Indian immigrants declared themselves as, and some of them declared
themselves as Sikh. The other immigrants are also found to Muslims and Christians. Data
shows that at the end of the 2014 397,180 Indian people were living in Australia. The number

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seems to be doubled in every year. These factors make the Australian the fourth largest
immigrant population of Australia, which is equivalent to the six per cent of Australian
overseas-born population. Statistical data represents that the median age of the Indian
immigrants is 33.2 years old, which is 4.1 years below the normal population (Morley et al.,
2012). The birth numbers of males are astonishingly high than the female birth number
approximately by fifty-four per cent with compare to forty-six per cent respectively.
The Victoria state is noticed to the more than 1 in every four Victorians. The birth rate
in Victoria reported being around twenty-six per cent which is now elevated to twenty-eight
per cent every year. The Indian people here mostly more than sixty per cent is reported to be
involved in religious affiliation. Among these most of the Indian immigrants perform
Hinduism. In addition to this, the second largest groups are found to be Sikh. The census also
reported explaining more than 6,64,473 extra people are found to be of the old age of around
sixty-five to seventy-five years of age.
The most astonishing fact is that many Indian women usually believe that their
pregnancy outcome is never under their control. They don’t try to know the nutrition facts.
They are not enough educated about the lack of nutrition in their bodies and also in their
children. These demographic categories are mainly youngsters. The young mothers are very
small in age, many of them hardly capable of bearing any children. Most of the young
mothers are aged around twenty to thirty. The cultural values of these Indian immigrants are
different from the traditional Australian culture (Yeates et al., 2009). The Indian culture
encourages the cold food intake during the pregnancy because they believe that hot food can
generate heat which is not good for the foetus (Worthington & Gogne, 2013). In addition to
this, it is also their belief that eating too much can result in a large foetus and that will
eventually increase the difficulties during the labour. According to the cultural belief, that

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mother should eat hot foods during the last stages of the pregnancy in order to facilitate
labour.
Health issues faced by Indians in Australia
The life expectancy of people of India in Victoria is 66.5 years in which male is 65.5
years and female has 67.6 years compared to the other population in Victoria (Harper, 2012).
There is a limited research on the health of Indian people in Victoria. Cancer rates are very
high for the Indian Australians if it is compared to the other people of Australia. Researchers
has showed that those people who are from the Indian origin has a high hazard of insulin
resistance and eventually to the formation of Type-2 diabetes (Pottie et al., 2015). Vitamin D
deficiency is also common in the people of India and the cardio vascular rates are
tremendously high to the people of India. Mental health care of the immigrant has emerged as
one of the challenging areas for the doctors and the nurses. Among the people of India who
were residing in Victoria for many years depression is one of the most common health
hazards (Shahid & Thompson, 2009). Researchers while conducting a clinical assessment in
the area of the population certain data were collected which shows that Indian women have a
higher rates of suicide than that of the other women in Victoria. It is noted that most of the
Indian people are smokers and alcohol addictive (Mossialos et al., 2016). Other health issues
which are found in the Indian immigrants are the nutritional deficits, malaria, tuberculosis,
sickle cell disease and the severe parasitic infections. There is no actual data for the mental
stress for the people of India in Australia. Mental health is a very chronic disease when not
controlled well then it can cause immense problem. The Australian Bureau of Statistics
shows the data of causes of death in Indian populations in Australia. It is noted that diabetes
is the third primary reason of death in India-born people and ninth for the Australia–born
people (McHugh et al., 2013). National data also marks the number of standardised
occurrence ratios for self–reported diabetes was considerably elevated than expected for men

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of South Asian origin than that of the men who were born in Australia. Therefore, it can be
believed that diabetes will affect the wellbeing of a number of Indian migrant people.
Health beliefs and practices among the people
Many Indian who lives in Victoria use Australian medicine for their betterment of
health. Along with the medicines they use traditional practices on them (Badland et al.,
2014). They have tremendous faith on the practices which they perform. The traditional
practices and the spiritual practices includes Siddha, Ayurveda, Tibbi, Unani, homeopathy,
acupressure and neuropathy. The participation of family members in minor and the major
medical decisions is critical for many Indian Australians. Lots of Indian Australian women,
mainly elder Hindus, may desire to be examined by health professionals of same sex.
Presence a female family member in presence when examining an older Hindu female is
suggested as it may facilitate a more open communication. Mental sickness has negative
connotation, especially in Hindu inhabitants (Lipner, 2013). Some consider that mental
sickness is due to of the evil eye. Since mental sickness is unrevealed, it is often expressed to
a practitioner as somatic complaints like stomach pain or headache rather than as gloominess
or nervousness.
Social determinants of health (SDoH)
WHO or the World Health Organisation perceives underestimation and encounters of
bigotry as connected to the social determinants of health. Literate people in India are small,
mainly for women. The rate is 61 per cent based on 2001 census. Literacy of men 73.4 per
cent and women is 47.8 per cent. However, the population of Indian in Victoria have high
level of edification when compared to the total Australian population. 97 per cent of men who
were born in India and 92 per cent of India-born ladies reported that they can speak in
English very well. Therefore the people from India want to settle in Victoria (Australian
Bureau of Statistics, 2012).

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The weekly income of individual for India-born people in Victoria aged 15 years and
over was $663, in comparison with $538 for people who are born overseas and $597 for all
the people who were born in Victoria (Castañeda et al., 2015).
Residential environment- The residential environment has a influence on health
through its impact on behaviour and safety and local resources. People and neighbourhoods
that ensure access to basic services; are publicly cohesive; which endorse physical and
psychological comfort; and defend the natural environment, are essential for health equity.
Health-promoting in modern environments are those with suitable accommodation and
transport and a mix of land use which encourages social gathering.
Employment and work- Unemployed people have a superior risk of death and have
more sickness than those of same age who are employed. The mental stress caused by
unemployment has a strong influence on physical and mental health and wellbeing. In some
people, unemployment is caused by mental illness, but for many people it is unemployment
itself that cause health hazards through its mental cost and the financial problems.
Conclusion
The conclusion can be drawn from the above mentioned article that the fourth largest
community of the world for Indian immigrants in Australia. The number of Indian
immigrants increases every year at a high rate. In Australia, the Victoria state holds the
second largest immigrant population of Australia. Most of the Indians are, and they practice
Hinduism and second most common found Indian religion in Australia is Sikh. There are
many other communities like Muslims and Christians. The birth rate of the male Indians
seems to be at the higher rate than the female birth rate. It was also found that the many of
these Indians are against the technological health care of Australia they rather like to use their
traditional herbs and Ayurveda. There are health issues, and problems face by this Indian

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immigrant community because of their cultural beliefs and values. It was found that they
seem to have lack of information about the birth control and nutrition fact during their
pregnancy.

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References
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B. (2014). Urban liveability: emerging lessons from Australia for exploring the
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Castañeda, H., Holmes, S. M., Madrigal, D. S., Young, M. E. D., Beyeler, N., & Quesada, J.
(2015). Immigration as a social determinant of health. Annual review of public
health, 36, 375-392.
Glover, M., Kira, A., Johnston, V., Walker, N., Thomas, D., Chang, A. B., ... & Brown, N.
(2015). A systematic review of barriers and facilitators to participation in randomized
controlled trials by Indigenous people from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the
United States. Global health promotion, 22(1), 21-31.
Harper, P. (2012). Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Lipner, J. (2013). Hindus: Their religious beliefs and practices. Routledge
McHugh, R. K., Whitton, S. W., Peckham, A. D., Welge, J. A., & Otto, M. W. (2013).
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the Canadian Collaboration for Immigrant and Refugee Health. (2015). Evidence-
based clinical guidelines for immigrants and refugees. CMAJ : Canadian Medical
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Shahid, S., & Thompson, S. C. (2009). An overview of cancer and beliefs about the disease
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