Culturally Safe Diabetic Care: Improving Health Outcomes in Australia

This essay discusses the importance of culturally safe diabetic care within Aboriginal Australian communities, where diabetes prevalence is notably high. It emphasizes the need for culturally appropriate, high-quality care delivered through a community-based, health worker-led approach. This model leverages community health workers' understanding of local culture to improve diabetes prevention and management, advocating for culturally relevant self-management support, effective communication, and education on lifestyle changes. The essay also highlights the benefits of point-of-care testing and the integration of traditional healers to complement modern healthcare services, ensuring accessible and convenient pathology services for the Indigenous population while promoting a holistic approach to health and well-being.

Running head: CULTURALLY SAFE DIABETIC CARE 1
Culturally Safe Diabetic Care in Aboriginal Australian Community
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

CULTURALLY SAFE DIABETIC CARE 2
Culturally Safe Diabetic Care Aboriginal Australian Community
It is important to note that Indigenous Australians have the greatest incidences and
prevalence of diabetes in the country and suffer from high rate of preventable complications.
Diabetes can be prevented through access to culturally appropriate and high-quality diabetes
care. A culturally safe, society levels health worker led approach of diabetes care for highly risk
patients is the most effective model in enhancing diabetes prevention and control among the
Indigenous Australians groups where there exists poor access to primary services (Reeve et al.,
2015). The government should use the community members to aid in controlling the prevalence
of diabetes because the community health workers understand their culture and members better
compared to foreigners.
The approach aids the community health workers to contribute towards an improved and
enhanced diabetes outcomes and care in under-served and high risk patients. The community
health workers should employ a culturally appropriate or relevant self-management support and
more effective communication (Nguyen et al., 2016). In the same token, the health workers
should educate the community members on the causes of diabetes and the importance of having
positive lifestyle changes (Webster et al., 2017). The delivery of safe care would encompass
involvement in physical activities, maintaining a healthy body weight, avoiding smoking and
alcohol, eating dietary meal, managing blood pressure, and managing the levels of cholesterol.
Moreover, the community health care workers should employ point-of-care examination
and testing which involves pathology test carried out in the presence of the patient (Shephard et
al., 2016). Point-of-care would involve patient consultation which can potentially result in the
delivery of many benefits for both the professional team and the indigenous customer. The
program or strategy is culturally safe and fill a positive and permanent niche in the population. It

CULTURALLY SAFE DIABETIC CARE 3
provides an accessible and convenient pathology services for the indigenous population suffering
from diabetes.
The community health workers should implement a consistent and clear follow-up to
abnormal results. They should also make the traditional healers accessible to complement
diabetes management because some of the remote individuals might refute modern health care
services (McDermott et al., 2015). As such, the health workers should arm themselves with
advisory and education pieces to enable the indigenous populace understand the importance of
maintaining a healthy body, for example, through eating a well-balanced diet.

CULTURALLY SAFE DIABETIC CARE 4
References
McDermott, R. A., Schmidt, B., Preece, C., Owens, V., Taylor, S., Li, M., & Esterman, A.
(2015). Community health workers improve diabetes care in remote Australian
Indigenous communities: results of a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. BMC
health services research, 15(1), 68.
Nguyen, H. D., Chitturi, S., & Maple‐Brown, L. J. (2016). Management of diabetes in
Indigenous communities: lessons from the Australian Aboriginal population. Internal
medicine journal, 46(11), 1252-1259.
Reeve, C., Humphreys, J., Wakerman, J., Carter, M., Carroll, V., & Reeve, D. (2015).
Strengthening primary health care: achieving health gains in a remote region of
Australia. The Medical Journal of Australia, 202(9), 483-487.
Shephard, M., O’Brien, C., Burgoyne, A., Croft, J., Garlett, T., Barancek, K., ... & Shephard, A.
(2016). Review of the cultural safety of a national Indigenous point-of-care testing
program for diabetes management. Australian journal of primary health, 22(4), 368-374.
Webster, E., Johnson, C., Kemp, B., Smith, V., Johnson, M., & Townsend, B. (2017). Theory
that explains an Aboriginal perspective of learning to understand and manage
diabetes. Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, 41(1), 27-31.