EQUITY Analysis of Binbi Meta Program: Australian Indigenous Health

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the 'Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program,' an Australian government initiative aimed at improving the health and lifestyle of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and South Sea Islander people. The analysis employs the EQUITY (Equity, Questioning, Understanding, Interrelating, Thinking, and Your design) methodology to evaluate the program's strategies, programs, and activities (SPA). The program focuses on enhancing psychosocial, physical, developmental, and overall well-being through community empowerment and allied health services. It emphasizes family-driven interventions, intersectoral collaboration, and addressing social determinants of health. The report examines the program's characteristics, its approach to information dissemination, cooperation with local institutions, coordination among professionals, and integration into the daily lives of the target communities, highlighting both successes and areas for improvement in achieving health equity.

RUNNING HEAD: HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT
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Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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Part 1: Introduction, Overview of Health Program, Project or Service and Population it
serves
The different health programs operating at global and national levels focuses on
solving the most complex health, nutritional and related physical, psychosocial problems
associated with certain communities of specific countries. Many health and nutrition
programs are funded by World Health Organisation and the national authorities of the
country in order to help the impoverished sections of the society, socially distressed societies
with the food, lifestyle and health awareness policies (Cederholm et al. 2019). In scenarios,
where the national government works extensively for the uplift of a certain indigenous
community and prevent certain disease or lifestyle issue in a target population – the national
government has to plan the right policies keeping in consideration the social determinants of
health, the structural determinants of health in order to better the collaboration with
indigenous communication in fostering of a health and nutritional program in a very effective
manner (Hamirudin, Charlton and Walton 2016). It is extremely important that the socio
economic factors and the cultural factors are also considered immensely while the
governmental policy makers concoct the right strategic and tactical policies to counter a
health condition in a target population (Fawcett et al. 2015). The Aboriginal and the Torres
Strait Islander people of Australia is the indigenous community that has suffered from a lot,
over the years and still suffers immensely from health conditions such as Type 2 Diabetes
Mellitus, hypertension and other infectious conditions (which are being aggravated by the
community member’s social habits of smoking, alcohol and other drug addictions) (Pettigrew
et al. 2015). The Australian government in response over the last few decades – has devised
various health promotion strategies in order to better the health conditions of the community
living people, improve their awareness about various lifestyle and other diseases and uplift
the overall conditions of their living habits (Schembri et al. 2016). This analytic study of a

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health and nutrition program extended by the Australian government, targeted at the
indigenous population of community living people - uses the EQUITY (Equity, Questioning,
Understanding, Interrelating, Thinking and Your design) methodology to analyse the chosen
SPA (Strategic, Program and Activities) problem.
In this analytic study, ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ started by the
Australian government to promote the overall lifestyle and prevent the diseases of the
Aboriginal and the Torres Strait islander people has been discussed thoroughly along with the
EQUITY analysis. The program is developed for Torres Strait, Aboriginal and the South Sea
Islander people residing in the Rockhampton area of Australia’s Queensland in order to help
the Australian community people take ownership along with conscious control over the
overall wellbeing, health by taking the positive lifestyle decisions. This health, nutrition
elevating program provided by the Australian government intends on providing a family-
driven and holistic encompassment of health interventions for young children in their early
lives and also for the adults in Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and the South Sea Islander
community (Luke et al. 2016). The program provides the health and nutrition awareness
services by enhancing the psychosocial, physical, developmental, health and wellbeing
aspects of human living experience of these indigenous community living people. Under the
spectrum of The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ - a vast range of community
empowerment and allied health services are covered. The health and life empowerment
program has different set of strategies for the encouragement of the family and individualistic
responsibility taking about their own and family’s health. The intersectoral bonds and
connections are strengthened by the Australian government, under the norms and policies of
this program and the macro-economic policies and the governance along with social and
public policies are fostered towards better collaboration with the non-governmental

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organization working for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and the South Sea Islander
people.
‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ by the Australian Government target
for the lifestyle, health and nutritional improvement of the Torres Strait Islander, South Sea
Islander and the Aboriginal people by strengthening the access of the aboriginal and other
community people to the health care facilities and the health care interventions along with
improvement of their loving (or housing) habits with proper access to occupation and
nutrition. The health and nutritional improvement program named ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy
Dwelling) Program’ by the Australian government targets at changing the life styles of the
community living people to a better rhythm of occupation, income, dietary intake, health
wellness and disease prevention. The ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’
improves intersectoral collaboration and social participation through the strategic
incorporation of information, collaboration, consultation, participation and finally
empowerment of the community living people of Australia to create a self-sustainable system
of healthy, disease free dwelling by taking self responsibility and ownership with the young,
middle aged and senior members of South Sea Islander, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal
people. The ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ also supports growth of the
vegetables and fruits in the backyards of participating Aboriginal’s home which is planned by
the policy makers and developers of the program as an important engagement tool. The
health, life and nutrition improvement program also focuses on recycling of the used objects,
storing and the proper handling of food along with the proper awareness building around
energy saving and sustenance of a stable socioeconomic life amongst the Torres Strait
Islander, Aboriginal and South Sea Islander people. There are certain special activities
included in the ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ spectrum as well and these
special activities learning and teaching of healthy styles of cooking, provision for home

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education along with raising the awareness of about the importance of monthly health check
ups.
Part 2: Analysis of program, project or service using the EQUITY SPA methodology.
The ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ by the Australian government
targeted at the Aboriginal, South Sea Islander and the Torres Strait Islander people
encompasses a lot of intersectoral collaboration between the governmental authorities, policy
makers, the health and nutrition experts working at urban and rural parts of country, the
clinicians, allied health professionals such as nutritionists, physical therapists, occupational
therapists, community health nurses and the indigenous social workers. Dissecting the
internal and intricate aspects of the ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ – it can be
considered that the overall program is a holistic all empowering approach towards bettering
the community life style, living habits and the awareness of healthy food intake, disease
prevention along with bettering of the government- community relationships through more
intensive and collaborative approach.
The ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program’ overall has fostered many great
changes in the upliftment of indigenous community of Australia. ‘The Binbi Meta (Healthy
Dwelling) Program’ has helped the community living people through the understanding of
educational, economic and nutritional approaches in order to deliver a healthy living to these
people, in a hygienic environment. The program has various specialized divisions such as
early health assessments of the Aboriginal and the Torres islander people in the early
childhood, helping the community people engage in their own cultivation of fruits and
vegetable in the house’s backyard (thus enhancing their nutritional fulfillment and preventing
deficiency diseases), delivering of affordable and quality nutritional and food eating services,

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proper recycling of objects for sustainable use and development, creating an effective
physical, mental and developmental well-being space in the social and sociocultural
environment of Aboriginal, South sea Islander and Torres Strait Islander people.
Analysis of Strategy, Program and Activities (SPA) of the Australian National Diabetes
Strategy program using the EQUITY framework
E Examine The characteristics of the Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling)
Program are :
 Early health assessments of the Aboriginal and the
Torres islander people in the early childhood (Beks
et al. 2019).
 assisting the community people in engaging with
their own cultivation of vegetable and fruits in the
backyard of their houses (Helson et al. 2017).
 Ensuring their nutritional fulfillment
 Ensuring prevention of deficiency and infectious
diseases through proper healthy practices of life
and hygiene.
 Delivering of affordable high quality health care
and disease prevent services.
 Creating awareness about proper meals, eating and
drinking habits.
 Healthy hand hygiene practices and food handling
techniques are taught to Aboriginal, Torres Strait

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Islander people and South Sea Islander people.
 Cooking programs and workshops are regularly
conducted in the community.
 The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program
creates awareness about the importance of home
education and the utility regular health check-ups
amongst the Torres Strait Islander people and the
Aboriginal people.
 The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program aims
to strengthen the economy of the community living
through jobs, work and income in their cultural
framework and towards the development of their
own culture to a more healthy and socially stable
system (Kerr et al. 2018).
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program empowers
proper recycling of objects for sustainable use and
development.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program strives to
provide a hygienic developmental, cognitive and
physical space to the young and elderly of the
community living Aboriginal, South Sea islander
and Torres Strait people.
Accessing the SPA theory – the Binbi Meta (Healthy
Dwelling) Program was found to promote economic,
social, cultural, humanistic, health and nutritional

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equity amongst the community living indigenous
people of Australia.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program
empowers participation of the community
people through communication with the
community people, through providing them the
information, through genuine consultation,
participation and community people
empowerment.
 The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program
empowers the socioeconomic position of the
community people by providing them jobs and
engagement. It takes both resource based and
prestige based measure thus addressing the
needs and esteem of the people
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program assist
in incorporating education, income and
occupation of the community locals of
Australia.
 The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program
fosters socioeconomic growth and socio
economic positional stability by strengthening
the cultural and social values, practice of
proper governance and macroeconomic
policies.

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Q Question Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program works by
executing the following procedure in intersectoral
collaboration with indigenous Torres Strait Islander, South
Sea Islander and Aboriginal people :-
 In the first stage (information) – it informs the
Aboriginal people and the Islander people about the
importance of health and nutritional practices in
order to enhance the quality of life. It informs the
community about the various ways of healthy
hygienic food handling and cooking habits. The
health and nutritional empowerment program also
informs the preventive, educational and self help
strategies to the community living people to build
around a healthy and quality experience of life
(Amujoyegbe et al. 2015).
 Second stage (cooperation) – the program fosters
collaboration with the local non-governmental
institutions working towards the best interests of the
Aboriginal and the Islander people. In some aspects
thought, the program executives and practitioners
lacks communication (culturally competent
communication) with locals that has hindered the
overall flow of the program’s empowering
operations (MacDonald et al. 2016). There are still

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some gaps in verbal and non-verbal communication
with the community people and the untrained
professionals (who did not receive a formal training
on language and competency) has contributed to the
communication gap (Browne, Adams and Atkinson
2016).
 Stage 3 ( coordination ) – the program shows
moderate level of collaboration between the trans-
disciplinary professionals working towards the
common goals set by the policymakers of Binbi
Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program. Secondly, there
are is also a coordination gap between the
strategists and the executives of the program and
hence, this has diminished the quality of service in
certain aspects (Nilson et al. 2015).
 Stage 4 (Integration) – the is a moderate cohesion
and integration both socially and culturally in the
real day to day practice of the service delivery, as
mentioned by the Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling)
Program. The service has not yet been integrated
with the daily lives of Aboriginal, Torres Strait
islander and South Sea Islander people (Colles,
Belton and Brimblecombe 2016).
U Understanding Barriers to the health equity – lack of culturally competent
communication, lack of coordination, lack of collaboration

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amongst the trans disciplinary service team, language
incompetency, lack of local economic and educational
resources, social and cultural discrimination.
Facilitators to the health equity – employment, education
and knowledge to the human resources of the community,
collaboration and integration with the community social
workers, facilitating entrusted, independent and delegated
control.
The incompetency or the gaps to deal with (Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse (CALD) or other vulnerable
community) can be dealt with education, culturally
competent communication and process based emphatic
practices (Gwynn et al. 2019, Conti et al.2019).
I Interrelating The following aspects of SDH are interrelated :
a. Material circumstances – the program provides
proper living situations (homes) and helps the
community people’s socioeconomic betterment by
helping them to grow fruits and vegetables in their
backyard (Browne et al. 2018).
b. Psychosocial factors – the positive stressors are
enhanced amongst the community living people and
the negative stressor has reduced by the program on

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a moderate basis (Walker, Palermo and Klassen,
2019).
c. Biological and behavioural factors – alcohol and
smoking behaviour of the community people are
controlled.
T Thinking
Y Your design
Part 3: Identification the aims and priorities for improving equity and
recommendations for action
The redesigned goals and priorities of the Australian National Diabetes prevention program
are as follows: -
 The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program should recruit more dieticians,
nutritionist and community health nurses should be recruited in order help them
community people with the nutritional awareness program.
 More experienced heath care and allied health practitioners should be included in the
program in order to better service quality.
 Collaborative and effective communication using cultural competence should be
fostered in order better the lack of communication.
 The program’s operational policies must be further strengthened with food and
nutritional policies.
 Continuous auditing must be incorporated in to the program’s framework in order to
comply the service providers and executives with right behavioural approaches
required to collaborate with the community people.

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 The non-governmental institution working for the best interests of the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait islander people should be provided more opportunities to strengthen
their socio- political connections with the government.
 The chosen health program must provide appropriate training programs to the
workforce in order communicate and integrate the program’s main practices into the
community’s framework.
 The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program must enhance their practical based
approaches such as cooking programs, food and healthy eating sessions.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program must facilitate intersectional relationships in
more effective manner by incorporation of employee training, skill development and
skill enhancement workshops and sessions.
 The culturally competent communication with the use of culturally competent
language must be fostered by Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program should aim to change the perspectives of the
community living people about a healthy living rather than just incorporating the
changes in their community system.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program must have more new and innovative
strategic approaches facilitating the coordination of the employees in formation of a
holistic multidisciplinary team.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program must start community based markets where
the locals can sell and buy foods and others in order sustain a healthy psychosocial
environment in the local community.
 Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program should also have counselling and recreation
programs to reduce the consumption of alcohol and other substances consumption.

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Part 4: Conclusion and Lessoned Learned
It can be concluded saying that while the program has been successful in many areas
till now as it has focusing equity promoting approach in regards to socio economic standings,
the psycho social sphere and disease – health- well-being framework by empowering the
overall rights, knowledge, awareness, practice and life style in whole, of the Aboriginal,
Torres Strait Islander and the South Sea islander people. In the beginning of the campaign,
various socio cultural disruption from the service provider’s side was reported and this was
chiefly due to the lack of in effective culturally competent communication, lack of
experienced staffs working in the framework of ‘The Binbi Meta Healthy Dwelling Program’
of the health and the lack of inter professional trans-disciplinary collaboration amongst the
health care providers and the service facilitators. I have learned that the barriers were not
mapped properly and this tactical failure in many areas of the health and nutrition promoting
project has led to decreased functionality in terms of service delivery and life style
enhancement of the Aboriginal, Torres Strait, South Sea Islander community dwelling
people. The Binbi Meta (Healthy Dwelling) Program must take actions in more effective
collaboration and coordination in order to work their way to a better community
empowerment outcome.

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