Lung Cancer in Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders

Lung cancer in Indigenous
Australians and Torres Strait
Islanders
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Table of Contents
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
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LITERATURE REVIEW
As said by Cunningham & Garvey (2020), lung cancer is most common disease in
Australia. The aboriginal and Torres islander people in nation are suffering from lung cancer as
well. It is found that there are 744,956 estimated people suffering from lung cancer. But among
them 45% of aboriginal and Torres islander people are living in inner areas whereas 20% lives in
remoter areas. The population is younger as compared to non indigenous people. It has been
analysed that there are many risk factors of lung cancer. They are alcohol, smoking, overweight
and obesity, etc. So, these all are highly contributing in occurrence of lung cancer. In report of
2015 it is found that Torres and aboriginal islander people smoke 2.8 more times than non
indigenous people. Besides that, 54% of population eat more fruits each day. In addition, 74%
population is suffering from obesity, 65% is not doing enough physical activity.
It has been stated that prevalence of cancer is that in 2013, 3626 people were diagnosed
from cancer in past 5 years (Davidson & et.al., 2013). Besides, prevalence rate is low in this
population but in non indigenous people mortality rate is high. Since 2011 -2015, 2754 people
died due to cancer. There are various types of cancer such as lung, breast, bowel, etc. However,
there are various prevention methods by which cancer can be prevented. First is doing risk
assessment, second is delivering education programs and promoting healthy lifestyle. Besides
that, there are certain programs that are currently running in Australia. They are Cancer
Australia, cancer council, etc. These all will enable in reducing cancer (Tervonen & et.al., 2017).
According to Dunn & et.al., (2017), aboriginal and Torres islander people suffer inferior
outcomes in diagnosis of lung cancer. It is found that as smoking rates in those people are high
due to their low lifestyle. Furthermore, there is great influence of health belief on behaviour of
community. It is found that in their culture there is no word of cancer but in western this word is
easily understood. Thus, their belief has changed. There are also various issues in health care that
are linked to structure, organisation and inter personal ones. The people of community does get
late diagnosis of lung cancer. Within community both chronic bronchitis and emphysema are
twice. Another issue is due to lack of access of services the people are not able to get primary
health care. It is due to lack of transportation, health infrastructure, etc. Besides, environmental
factors is also issue in it. The socio economic status of community is low. There is poor housing,
unemployment, etc. due to which they are at high risk of lung cancer. In view of John & et.al.,
(2020), there is need to implement policy in health care. It will enable in dealing with providing
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