Critical Healthcare: Social Determinants and Indigenous Health

This report examines the critical link between poverty, healthcare, and Indigenous Australians. It highlights how social determinants, such as poverty and inequality, affect the health outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The report discusses the impact of these factors on healthcare access, the significance of the social gradient, and the need for healthcare practitioners to understand the psychosocial determinants of poor health. Additionally, it references key studies and provides insights into the challenges faced by Indigenous Australians in accessing quality healthcare and the need for equality in healthcare management. The report's core argument is that poverty is not the sole cause of poor health; hence, healthcare management teams must improve the quality of healthcare by observing equality in health.

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There is an incontrovertible link between poverty, the indigenous nature of some individuals in
Australia to health and healthcare provision. Australia is among the countries that portrays this
poor health patterns between high and low income groups (Walter, 2007). Health social
determinants evidently prove that poverty is the main cause of Aboriginal poor health. Structural
social determinants of populations also enlist the factors that affect healthcare as, social
exclusion, stress, food, unemployment, transport and social support. Walter’s article makes us
understand that there is a correlation between the Aboriginal individuals in Australia and the
listed factors.
It is up to the healthcare practitioners to understand the psychosocial determinants to poor health.
They can begin by explicitly understanding the broader political, social, the economic nature that
relates to Aboriginal poverty and Aboriginal health (Marmot, 2011). As a healthcare practitioner
it is important to observe equality because societal inequalities bring about health problems. The
implications of poor access to healthcare worsen the circumstances of quality healthcare at
homes, during birth, at old age and at work. The hidden agenda of the subject in this material is
inequality in every sector including resources and access to power. The material clearly shows
the expectancy life gap of 17 years between non-indigenous and indigenous Australians.
.
The material focuses more on poverty but does not speak of the social disadvantage of the health
condition of indigenous people in Australia. This is important because the social gradient
indicates that most poor countries face the same challenges as the indigenous Australians. For

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instance, they report many cases of premature deaths, high rates of heart attacks and other
cardiovascular diseases. In relation to the enlisted factors above one can conclude that poverty is
not the only cause of poor health and it is up to the health management team to improve the
quality of healthcare by observing equality in health (Bailie & Wayte, 2006).
Reference

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Bailie, R. S. & Wayte, K. J., 2006. Housing and health in Indigenous communities: Key issues
for housing and health improvement in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
communities. Menzies School of Health Research, Casuarina, Northern Territory, Australia,
14(1), pp. 178-183.
Marmot, M., 2011. Social determinants and the health of Indigenous Australians. Health is
dependent on conditions that enable people to live lives they would choose to live, 194(10), p.
2/2.
Walter, M., 2007. Aboriginality,Poverty and Health—Exploring the Connections. Chapter 5
Exploring the Underlying Social Determinants of Aboriginal Health, p. 1/14.