Indigenous Health Perspectives: A Report on Aboriginal Health

This report examines the health perspectives of Indigenous Australians, focusing on the case of Carol Martin, a former smoker and Labor MP. It highlights the disproportionate burden of health issues, such as respiratory diseases, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, faced by Indigenous communities compared to non-Indigenous Australians. The report delves into the impact of smoking on individuals, families, and communities, emphasizing its role in widening health and life expectancy gaps. It explores factors contributing to smoking among Indigenous populations, including historical practices and socioeconomic factors. Furthermore, the report discusses the health consequences of smoking, including increased mortality rates, financial burdens, and family neglect. Finally, it suggests potential interventions, such as anti-smoking campaigns, the use of Indigenous health workers, and culturally sensitive health promotion strategies, to address these challenges and improve Indigenous health outcomes.

Running Head: Indigenous Health Perspective
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INDIGENOUS HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
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INDIGENOUS HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
Indigenous health issues are the cultural physical social and emotional welfare of
Aboriginal persons. Most indigenous Australians are usually faced with poorer health
issues as compared to other Australians and usually have lower life expectancy.
Indigenous Australians are also more prone to respiratory diseases, diabetes, mental
health problems, cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease than their other
counterparts. The active use of tobacco, alcohol, and other illicit substances by
Australians is at a very high rate and this in turn is reflected in various life aspects. For
instance, substance abuse is believed to play a critical role in widening the line between
the Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on issues of health and life expectancy
(Hsu, Caputi & Byrne, 2010).
Carol martin, an indigenous woman, a labor MP in west Australia was addicted to
smoking for 39 years. Being a smoker for such a long time she thought that she fully
aware she would never quit smoking. However, after sometime she managed to stop
and at some point she confessed that she experienced various smoking-related
problems such as sore throat, diabetes and hypertension even after quitting smoking.
She related how smoking had taken a toll on her health. Carol martin said that she
spent a huge part of her income in smoking but after ceasing from the behavior, she
was able to save quite a lot of money within a short time. She also explained how
smoking was time consuming hanging out with fellow smokers but after refraining from
smoking she spent the better part of her time with her family and impacted them
positively.

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It is evident that smoking among the indigenous communities is one of the health
issues which have increased at a higher alarming rate from 40 to 80 percent compared
to non-indigenous communities leading to serious health issues (Valery, Coory, Stirling,
& Green, 2006). Native people begin smoking at a tender age and are significantly less
likely to quit unlike non-native populace. Some of the factors that contribute to smoking
among aboriginal people include tobacco payments where the white men paid them
with tobacco after work. Also, lack of knowledge of the health problems associated with
smoking. Additionally, the native people were not exposed to anti-smoking campaigns
due to their economic status (Pedersen, Dudgeon, Watt, & Griffiths, 2006). Another
factor is poor housing which leads to overcrowding thereby leading to passive smoking
even among the children.
Some of the measures that can be put into place are promoting anti-smoking
campaigns which can be done through media, and door to door campaigns to create
awareness. Similarly, employing indigenous health workers and educators will help the
native smokers to quit. Use of traditional and cultural elements to channel health
promoting information why aboriginal should stop smoking can also help control the
problem. What is more, training clinicians on how to help smokers to quit and how to
recommend therapies can also help the prevalence of smoking (Smith, Humphreys, &
Wilson, 2008).
Smoking is one of the key contributors that can lead to health conditions such as
diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular heart disease and cancer (Johnston & Thomas,
2008). Suffering from such diseases impacts the lives of patients as well as those of
their families and community at large. Some of the key effects of such health conditions

Indigenous Health Perspectives 4
are in terms of mortality rates, income expenditure, unemployment and family burdening
and neglect (Vos, Barker, Begg, Stanley, & Lopez, 2009). Firstly, smoking itself impacts
heavily on the family members and the smokers. They tend to spend a lot of
unnecessary funds so as to fulfill their desire to smoke. As such, a lot of money is
wasted by the individuals and this can in turn lead to consistently high poverty levels to
due to the wastage of resources. For instance carol martins confesses that she saved
A$2000 within the first six months after she quit smoking. Before, she was spending this
money on smoking.
As discussed above, smoking leads to serious health conditions. These health
conditions usually leads to higher mortality rates as they claim a lot of lives. This in turn
leads to sharp decline in population due to the increased number of deaths. Again,
these health conditions require a lot of medical attention and frequent visits to health
facilities to seek treatment. As such it leads to higher expenses being used while
seeking medical attention. The funds which could have been used to do projects or
actions to improve the living conditions of a family are in contrary used in hospitals and
thus the families might tend to continue living in poor living standards (Biddle & Hunter,
2018).
Additionally, when one is suffering from the diseases related to smoking like lung
cancer and is required to attend screening channels and radiotherapies a lot of time is
used in hospitals. I cases where the patients was the bread winner the situation brings
about a lot of disturbances and burden to the family. This is because they have to
create time to take them to hospital and as well struggle to attain funds needed for
medication. Also if a parent becomes ill, they might not be able to effectively take care

Indigenous Health Perspectives 5
of their children thus neglecting them. All the above named impacts in the long end
impact on the society in general since if families are living in poverty, the society is also
affected. The neglected children might also indulge into criminal actions while trying to
make ends meet in cases where there are no responsible guardians to look after them.

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References
Biddle, N., & Hunter, B. (2018). Factors associated with internal migration: A
comparison between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Canberra,
ACT: Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Research School of
Social Sciences, College of Arts & Social Sciences, The Australian National
University.
Hsu, C. I., Caputi, P., & Byrne, M. K. (2010). Level of Service Inventory-Revised:
Assessing the risk and need characteristics of Australian Indigenous
offenders. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 17(3), 355-367.
Johnston, V., & Thomas, D. P. (2008). Smoking behaviours in a remote Australian
Indigenous community: the influence of family and other factors. Social science &
medicine, 67(11), 1708-1716.
Pedersen, A., Dudgeon, P., Watt, S., & Griffiths, B. (2006). Attitudes toward Indigenous
Australians: The issue of “special treatment”. Australian Psychologist, 41(2), 85-
94.
Smith, K. B., Humphreys, J. S., & Wilson, M. G. (2008). Addressing the health
disadvantage of rural populations: how does epidemiological evidence inform
rural health policies and research?. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 16(2), 56-
66.
Valery, P. C., Coory, M., Stirling, J., & Green, A. C. (2006). Cancer diagnosis,
treatment, and survival in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians: a matched
cohort study. The Lancet, 367(9525), 1842-1848.

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Vos, T., Barker, B., Begg, S., Stanley, L., & Lopez, A. D. (2009). The burden of disease
and injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: the Indigenous health
gap. International journal of epidemiology, 38(2), 470-477.