Impact of Social Determinants on Indigenous Australians' Health: A Case Study

This case study report analyzes the impact of social determinants on Indigenous Australians' health, focusing on access to health services and housing environment. It also discusses the importance of cultural safety and solutions to provide support and treatment to individuals like Shane.

Assessment 3

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
TASK...............................................................................................................................................4
Case study....................................................................................................................................4
Discussion....................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
Books and journals:.....................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Social factors significantly impact an individual's health condition that is not directly
related to medical care. There are many social Conditions under which an individual can be born
and work is referred to as a determinant, and everyone in the world interacts with them daily. If a
society lacks both wealth and power, it is more susceptible to a lack of education and therefore
understanding, than a society that has both. Cultural, racial, and economic problems all
contribute to the poor health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The strategy of
removing children from their families resulted in the trauma to the children and the deterioration
of their culture, which led to their isolation (Chang, 2019). When it comes to the health of
Indigenous Australians, there are two key social determinants of health that are examined in this
study. These two determinates are access to affordable health services and housing and basic
amenities and the environment. These determinants have a major impact on the health of an
individual mainly in Australian aboriginal people. These factors impact their mental health
which leads them to adopt unnecessary addictions and improper care.
TASK
Case study
The case study demonstrates that Shane is an aged man who was born in the region of
Western Australia. He is about 70 years old Shane is part of the stolen generation means that
their children were removed from their families by the government. It is an act of social culture
which makes them apart from their family and makes relations. It makes them apart from the
society due to which the life of these people can be worse in the future. In the case of Shane, he
was separated from his mother when he was 6 years old until the mission was regulated in
Australia (Paradies, 2018). Therefore, trauma creates an adverse impact on Shane’s life.
Therefore, his life becomes full of trauma and the relationship is usually rendered with his wife
which shows the aspect of discomfort. He has seen so much trouble and separation from his
family which makes him alone and used to adopt alcohol and drugs to intervene the mental
stress. This shows that the housing environment impacts a lot on the growth and development of
an individual throughout his life journey. It is one of the social determinants which have an

impact on Torres Strait islander peoples. All these circumstances lead to heart bypass surgery
due to adopting an unhealthy Lifestyle.
This was one of his worst trauma by becoming ill but apart from this, Shane has suffered
the loss of his wife in his middle age which is also become a separation from his close ones. This
shows that change affects the relationship with his wife due to health conditions and mental
trauma. This is the social determinant that has separated a lot of individual personalities with
their attitude and nature that impact their wellbeing (Nogrady, 2019).As soon as Shane started
recovering by shifting to his daughter Jenny’s house with her children and husband. A piece of
news is retrieved that is related to Shane's grandson has also been separated from his mother by
the department of children protection. This incident has also taken place in depth in Shane which
made him under depression and stress which may also impact his mental health. He was already
suffering from heart disease so this mental trauma was not good for him and he got admitted to
the hospital. This case shows that life with family is an important part of an individual culture
and a positive mindset that keeps them along with their people. It was not supposed to be done
by the child care department of Australia as they separated the family which leads to
psychological factors and mental illness. Shane loses their confidence and feels undervalued
within the case study. In addition, it also reveals that a protective factor must be developed with
the seriousness which is performed at the early age of his life. He was separated from his mother
at the age of 6 years which create a factor that can occur only through living with family. The
only supporting strength factor, in this case, is that Shane and his siblings understand the value
and importance of family which results in social support and makes society aware of it.
The period of childhood gains a lot of importance in the growth and development of a
child (Yu, 2019). Family is that supportive element and factor that can eradicate causes and
issues which an individual faces due to isolation and loneliness (Reid, Cormack, and Paine,
2019).Facing prejudice and ineffective education which makes them look poor and more
Indigenous. So, an individual could only get affected when they want to live their life with a
supportive factor of motivation, environmental families, and relatives. Therefore, proper
solutions are required for their treatment of Shane because of their worst condition and lack of
treatment in the hospital. In addition, When Shane's son arrived, then Shane felt happy but he
was not in a proper condition and wants to return home. Shane was involved in taking

intravenous fluids to make him active and hydrated which was not a great solution. As soon as
Shane gets into the hospital in which they did not get proper care due to calling security staff and
talking to Max in an unacceptable way which shows a lack of respect towards the people seeking
health treatment that shows the inequalities of health due to cultural difference.
With all of this behaviour, Shane did not want to get admitted into the hospital as he was
already suffering from much trauma and did not want others as well (Moodie, Maxwell, and
Rudolph, 2019).With the help of such a case, identification of some great solutions to provide
support and treatment to the Shane to come out with physical and mental diseases. When the
individual will enjoy his life and wants to live more he will automatically get known about a
healthier lifestyle. The solutions are to be taking steps for the indigenous people's rights for
getting treatment and respect in the culture of Australia (Cultural Security Is an On-Going
Journey, 2020). This could be done by providing cultural security which needs to be considered
by the Healthcare professionals to engage in community activities on health-related issues for
aboriginal people.
Discussion
Racism has been a part of Indigenous Australians' lives since childhood. Racism has been
shown to hurt people's mental health, which in turn harms their health. Unfair power distribution,
resources, and opportunities across ethnic groups are mostly the result of racism. Indigenous
Australians face racism due to colonialism, oppression, and cultural history (Chenhall, and
Senior, 2018). When Indigenous Australians are given more labour than their non-Indigenous
peers, Indigenous Australians are subjected to prejudice from a young age and throughout their
lives. By analyzing the case of Shane, it has evaluated that social determinants and cultural
safety is important in the case of aboriginal islander people who achieve great motivation and
well-being while living in a country. The two social determinants identified in the Shane case are
housing environment and access to health and security services important factors for concern for
Shane and his son and daughter.
Healthcare professionals need to look into every individual’s condition and provide them
well environmental adjustments. As per the cultural security model, the aboriginal people have
the right to get cultural security by getting involved in the community and people to find
relations, and keep their minds diverted(Gilbert, 2019). In this, their cultural aspect is used to

promote within the global level that helps to the known respective scenario. As Shane is
suffering from trauma and isolation they need to be the shift to some care providers who look for
their day-to-day activities and make them engage with other people to talk in share their feelings.
This person could get better through getting emotional and cultural support rather than giving
continuous medicines without an internal feeling of Living. One of the social determinants is to
get proper help service access by making aware Healthcare professionals about people living in
the country are facing dangerous mental drama that will impact on countries image and the
whole government system. Also, the child development authority needs to bring awareness
regarding not separating families and encourage facilities for their livelihood in Australia (Lines,
and Jardine, 2019). The indigenous people will get a better living and will not face difficulty to
look for their close ones like in the case of Shane and Jenny.
CONCLUSION
As per the above discussion, it is well analyzed that the Indigenous Australians' health is
influenced mainly by a lack of early childhood development and prejudice. The removal of
children is widespread, and it harms the physical and emotional well-being of Aboriginal
peoples, leading to an increase in drug abuse. Racism and early childhood development can be
reduced by educating the greater community of Australia about racism at an early age. Education
has the power to improve society and the skills needed to face life's obstacles. It would have been
less likely that Shane would have become depressed and abused drugs if he was educated.

References
Books and journals:
Chang, C.D., 2019. Social determinants of health and health disparities among immigrants and their
children. Current problems in pediatric and adolescent health care, 49(1), pp.23-30.
Chenhall, R.D. and Senior, K., 2018. Living the social determinants of health: Assemblages in a remote
Aboriginal community. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 32(2), pp.177-195.
Gilbert, S., 2019. Living with the past: the creation of the stolen generation positionality. AlterNative:
An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 15(3), pp.226-233.
Lines, L.A. and Jardine, C.G., 2019. Connection to the land as a youth-identified social determinant of
Indigenous Peoples’ health. BMC Public Health, 19(1), pp.1-13.
Moodie, N., Maxwell, J. and Rudolph, S., 2019. The impact of racism on the schooling experiences of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students: A systematic review. The Australian
Educational Researcher, 46(2), pp.273-295.
Nogrady, B., 2019. The trauma of Australia's Indigenous' Stolen Generations' is still affecting children
today. Nature, 570(7762), pp.423-425.
Paradies, Y., 2018. Racism and indigenous health. In Oxford research encyclopedia of global public
health.
Reid, P., Cormack, D. and Paine, S.J., 2019. Colonial histories, racism, and health—The experience of
Māori and Indigenous peoples. Public Health, 172, pp.119-124.
Yu, N., 2019. Interrogating social work: Australian social work and the stolen generations. Journal of
Social Work, 19(6), pp.736-750.
Online
Cultural Security Is an On-Going Journey, 2020. [online]. Available through <
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7697803/>