HEALT2114 - Indigenous Health: Strategies to Close the Gap by 2031

This essay provides an overview of the 'Closing the Gap' initiative in Australia, which aims to reduce the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2031. It discusses the current progress towards this target, highlighting statistical data on life expectancy and mortality rates. The essay also examines various strategies implemented to improve Indigenous health outcomes, including immunization programs, school nutrition projects, and support services for mental health and suicide prevention. Furthermore, it suggests additional measures, such as regulating tobacco affordability and supply, to address specific health challenges like smoking among Indigenous communities. The analysis concludes that while some progress has been made, more concerted efforts are needed to achieve the 2031 target and ensure better health outcomes for Indigenous Australians; students can find more solved assignments and past papers on Desklib.

RUNNING HEAD: INDIGENOUS HEALTH 1
Indigenous Health
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INDIGENOUS HEALTH
INTRODUCTION
The gap in this assignment that is set to be closed by 2031 is the life expectancy between
the indigenous and the non-indigenous Australians. This target is very important since there will
be thriving of the infants, children will also succeed at school and there will be more
employment opportunities. Majority of the indigenous communities want to see their children
grow healthy (Bertilone & McEvoy, 2015). There are however different barriers to healthy living
such as the barriers to nutritious and affordable food.
DISCUSSION
According to statistics, the target to closing the gap is currently not on track. There is
need for increased pace if the target is set to be achieved by 2031.To find out if the target is on
track or not, the variables that are used include the life expectancy at birth that are made
available after five years (Parker, Bodkin-Andrews, Marsh, Jerrim, & Schoon, 2013). According
to the statistics published recently in 2013 which reflected the life expectancies among the
indigenous boys and girls and females who were born between 2010 and 2012, it was established
that the boys had a life expectancy of 69.1 which is less by those of non-indigenous communities
by a whopping 10.6 years (Browne, 2017). The life expectancy of the females on the other hand
was 73.7 years and this was 9.5 years below those of the non-indigenous Australians.
Between the year 2005 and 2007,and between 2010 and 2012,there was a marked
increase in life expectancy among indigenous males of 0.3 years on an annual basis while those
of females increased by 0.1 years per year. This results implied that there was a small reduction
in the gap by 0.8 years for the indigenous males while for the females, it was 0.1 years (Browne,

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2017). It is however recommended that to meet the target of closing the gap by 2031, the life
expectancy among the indigenous communities is supposed to increase by 0.6-0.8 years
annually. The table below illustrates the discrepancy in life expectancy among the indigenous
and non-indigenous Australians.
Indigenous Non-indigenous Gap(Years)
Males females males females males females
2005-2007 67.5 73.1 78.9 82.6 11.4 9.6
2010-2012 69.1 73.7 79.7 83.1 10.6 9.5
Another factor that has been used to evaluate the progress of the closing the gap target is
the mortality rate. The advantage of using the mortality rates is that the values are projected on
an annual basis as compared to the life expectancies that are only projected after every five
years.
According to statistics, there was a significant decline in the mortality rates by 14%
among the indigenous Australians between 1998-2016.There was also a drop in the mortality
rates among the non-indigenous communities within the same time and the gap was reduced to
only 9%.However, despite significant improvements between 2006 and 2016, the mortality rates
among the indigenous communities has not been on track to meet the set target (Browne, Hayes,
& Gleeson, 2014). When we compare this with the non-indigenous communities, the mortality
rates are declining continuously and this is the reason why the gap has not narrowed as from
2006.The graph below illustrates the trends in the mortality rates.

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Strategies that have been utilized and those being utilized to close the gap of life
expectancy by 2031
There have been different strategies that have been utilized to close the gap by 2031.One
of the strategies is immunization. For the past decade, focus has been on immunization as a
method to improve life expectancy by organizations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund
and the World Health Organization (Gorman & Vemuri, 2012) . To close the gap of life
expectancy by 2031, there has been extensive immunization among the indigenous Australians.
There was a collaborative program between Australia’s National Immunization Program,
Australian Government and the state and territory governments that was set up in 1997.The
objective of this program was to reduce the prevalence of vaccine preventable diseases through
increasing the immunization coverages (Davey, 2017). The National Immunization Program has
been providing vaccines to 17 vaccine preventable diseases to the eligible groups especially the
children, the elderly and the expectant women among the indigenous Australians. Since the NIP
was introduced in1997, there has been increased immunization in children from 53-97% from the

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1980s (Cashman et al., 2016).The NIP was further expanded in 2017 to provide catch up
vaccines that are same to those received in childhood to young adults of up to 19 years as well as
the refugees and the humanitarian entrants of any age. The Minister of Health in Australia also
implemented a 3 year childhood immunization education campaign to further support
vaccination uptake.
School nutrition project in the Norther Territory is another strategy currently being used.
More than $24 million has been set aside by the Australian Government for the school nutrition
program in the Northern territory for the next three years. The objective of this program is to
provide nutritious meals to children so as to improve their school attendance and engagement.
The program operates in 72 sites and 63 communities and is believed to offer nutritious meals to
over 5400 children in a single day.
The Australian Government is also improving healthy lifestyles through indigenous
sports by committing more than $135 million (Clifford, Doran, & Tsey, 2013) . The government
also regulates the quality of food supplied from the Outback stores. The government ensures that
sugary foods are supplied at very low rates since they lead to chronic conditions like diabetes.
The National Indigenous Critical Response Service is another strategy. The Australian
government has set aside $10 million through the National Indigenous Critical Response Service
whose objective is to offer support to individuals among the indigenous Australians who are
affected by suicide and other critical conditions that involve death (Cumming, Kinner, & Preen,
2016). This strategy has shown signs of speeding up the closing the gap target by 2031.Other
notable strategies include the aged care, social and emotional well-being and supporting
Indigenous Australians with disabilities.

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Suggested strategy.
Despite the numerous efforts by the Australian government to close the gap of life
expectancy by 2031, there is a suggestion that I believe would work well. According to statistics,
there is a high rate of smoking among the Aboriginal and Torres Islander people in Australia.
The rate at which pregnant women among indigenous Australians smoke is relatively
high .Studies have linked excess tobacco to increased mortality among the children. The
government could therefore reduce the rates of smoking by regulating affordability and the
supply of tobacco products to these indigenous communities. This would significantly reduce the
mortality rates among infants and speed up the closing the target of life expectancy by 2031.The
smoking trends among the indigenous communities is illustrated in the graph below.
CONCLUSION
There is a wide gap of life expectancy between the indigenous and the non-indigenous
communities in Australia. This is reflected in the reduced life expectancies and increased
mortality rates between the two groups in Australia as reflected by the graphs above. The closing
the gap in life expectancy is currently not on track due to the fact that there has not been any

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reduction in mortality rates among the indigenous communities as from 2006.In order to close
the gap of life expectancy by 2031,there have been different strategies that have been used. Some
of them include immunization as well as modifications in the lifestyles of the Aboriginal and
Torres Islander people .Despite these efforts, I would still suggest the control of tobacco smoking
among the indigenous communities since smoking has been linked to increased mortality rates
among the infants. There should be collective efforts to close the gap of life expectancy by 2031
so that infants can thrive and succeed at school to get employment in future.

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References
Bertilone, C., & McEvoy, S. (2015). Success in Closing the Gap: favourable neonatal
outcomes in a metropolitan Aboriginal Maternity Group Practice Program. The
Medical Journal of Australia, 203(6), 262. doi:10.5694/mja14.01754
Browne, A. J. (2017). Moving beyond description: Closing the health equity gap by
redressing racism impacting Indigenous populations. Social Science & Medicine, 184,
23-26. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.045
Browne, A. J. (2017). Moving beyond description: Closing the health equity gap by
redressing racism impacting Indigenous populations. Social Science & Medicine, 184,
23-26. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.045
Browne, J., Hayes, R., & Gleeson, D. (2014). Aboriginal health policy: is nutrition the ‘gap’
in ‘Closing the Gap’? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 38(4),
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Cashman, P. M., Allan, N. A., Clark, K. K., Butler, M. T., Massey, P. D., & Durrheim, D. N.
(2016). Closing the gap in Australian Aboriginal infant immunisation rates -- the
development and review of a pre-call strategy. BMC Public Health, 16(1).
doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3086-x
Clifford, A. C., Doran, C. M., & Tsey, K. (2013). A systematic review of suicide prevention
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Cumming, C., Kinner, S. A., & Preen, D. B. (2016). Closing the Gap in Indigenous health:
why section 19(2) of the Health Insurance Act matters. The Medical Journal of
Australia, 205(6), 283. doi:10.5694/mja16.00593

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Davey, R. X. (2017). The economic benefits of eliminating Indigenous health inequality in
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Gorman, J., & Vemuri, S. (2012). Social implications of bridging the gap through ?caring for
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Parker, P. D., Bodkin-Andrews, G., Marsh, H. W., Jerrim, J., & Schoon, I. (2013). Will
closing the achievement gap solve the problem? An analysis of primary and
secondary effects for indigenous university entry. Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 1085-
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