Report: Evaluating the Closing the Gap Housing for Health Program

This report analyzes the Closing the Gap program, an Australian government initiative aimed at improving the living conditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with a specific focus on the Housing for Health program. The report explores the program's contributions to various targets, highlighting successes such as improved living standards through housing hardware and reduced chronic diseases. It also identifies challenges, including limited budgets and data availability. The report provides recommendations for improvement, such as securing additional funding and enhancing research practices. The discussion and conclusion emphasize the importance of addressing these issues to effectively improve the health and well-being of Indigenous communities. The Housing for Health program's success is attributed to its focus on immediate safety measures, healthy living practices, and community engagement. Despite its achievements, the program faces constraints due to funding limitations and data gaps. The report suggests sourcing funds from external organizations and improving research practices to address these issues and enhance the program's effectiveness. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for continued efforts to bridge the gap in health and well-being for Indigenous Australians.

Closing the Gap
1

ABSTRACT
The current report is based on Closing The Gap program which was enacted by the
government of Australia in order to take action toward improving the condition of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people. This was the set of policies that created by the government in
response to social justice which contain set of targets related with the life expectancy, child
mortality, child education, employment, housing etc. Among them the current report focuses on
housing by representing a case study of Housing for health program which was organised with
an aim to improve the living condition by developing the facilities in house by improving and
inserting the appropriate hardware. This report talks about [program contribution, success of
program, problems in programs, solutions to improve program.
2

CONTENTS
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................2
Contents...........................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Overview......................................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Program contribution to specific closing the gap targets.............................................................4
Identify the success of program:..................................................................................................5
Identification of problem:............................................................................................................7
Solution to identify the problem..................................................................................................7
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION.............................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
3

INTRODUCTION
Closing a gap is basically a government strategy which put emphases toward minimising
the disadvantages that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mainly have with respect
to their life expectancy, access to early childhood education, employment outcome, educational
achievement and child morality (Closing the Gap. 2020). This is a formal commitment which is
made by the government of Australia in order to achieve the health equality among the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait island people within the duration of 25 years.
In order to monitors this the Council of Australian governments set certain measurable
targets to monitor the improvement over the wellbeing and health of indigenous people. Here the
main targets was close the gap in life expectancy by 2031, and many more. But despite of this in
year 2018 a social gathering of the prominent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander presented the
COAG with a statement which set out the priority regarding the new closing Gap agenda. It
mainly includes priorities of next 10 years such as Health, justice, culture, language, education,
family, housing, healing and elimination of racism and systemic discrimination (COAG
STATEMENT ON THE CLOSING THE GAP REFRESH. 2018).
Overview
For this report, 10 years of housing for Health in NSW case is taken into consideration
which talks about the housing and infrastructure as a major environmental factor which is
affecting the health and wellbeing of indigenous people (McDonald, 2011). The inadequate or
poor maintained housing as well as absences of functioning infrastructure creates a serious issue
to their health. This study is related with the housing target of next 10 year plan of closing the
gap program.
MAIN BODY
Program contribution to specific closing the gap targets
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander remains in disadvantage in several factors as they
are discriminated by the other people of Australia and also remains away form several
advantage. But to remove this inequality, in year 2008 the indigenous people and Australian
government both get agreed on working together to achieve the equality in health status and life
expectancy. For this closing the gap policy was developed in respond to the social justice report
and social justice campaign which put emphases toward targets like halve the gap in reading,
writing and numeracy by 2018, halve the gap in child mortality by 2018, halve the gap in
4

employment by 2018, halve the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020. Other than this a second
stage was also introduced in year 2018 special meeting such as housing, education, youth justice,
elimination of racism etc.
In this regard a program was launched with the name of “10 year of housing for health in
NSW” which was based on the target of housing as emphasized in the meeting of 2018. It is
being believed that housing and infrastructure place a significant role in health and wellbeing of
an individual within which Torres Strait islander people are lacking behind (10 Years of Housing
for Health in NSW. 2010). In Australia, they more likely to live in overcrowded places and
having poor quality housing which was the major cause behind spread of infection among people
and their poor health condition.
But there are several actions taken under this program which contribute a lot toward the
Housing for health target specified under closing the gap program such as
Providing condition for health promotions: This program focuses toward supporting
the healthy living among people by inserting the appropriate hardware in house required to
improve the living quality. This includes repairing the shower rose to ensure hot and cold water
supply, plumbing to improve the sanitation and improve the electrical system of each house to
avoid nay risk of accident or damage.
Education opportunity: Under this program in order to the housing for better health and
well being of people, the community is being educated regarding the things they must follow in
order to get better and healthy life (Brueckner, Spencer, Wise and Marika, 2014). This support
people surveying nad fixing the house effectively by getting full support from indigenous people.
Other than this the people are also educated about the way they must use hardware and cleaning
activities they must consider to improve their living.
Reduced long term chronic disease: The health system of Australia is of international
level and have a better treatment to deal with diseases, but until the main cause f infection not get
removed the patient will again get to the same condition. So, it is being treated under this
program where houses are targeted with the healthy hardware which improve the ability of house
to support the better and healthy living practice which contribute toward reducing the spread of
infectious disease.
Identify the success of program:
Summarise the success
5

Due to the inequality and disadvantage that Torres Strait islander people faced the Australia
government took action in this regard i.e. “close a gap” and among them one target is housing.
This program housing for health proves to be successful as iot take several initiative toward
improving the housing facilities and condition of people in order to provide them with a better
living standard. Some area of success includes, the living standard of people get improved by
insertion of housing hardware and equipment to improve the housing facilities. The program also
support in reducing the accidents or life issues that actually caused due to inappropriate
infrastructure facilities such as poor electricity connection, blockage of waste that causes
infection etc. Despite of this program also help in reducing the chronic diseases by providing
appropriate knowledge to the nutrition diet and providing healthy service delivery for better
health of people (Kalb, Le, Hunter and Leung, 2014). Another major success was that this
program support in reducing the infectious disease rate which was the major success factor by
improving the house functioning and the ability of households to undertake healthy living along
with improving the environmental condition. Other than this, the housing for health program is
also get successful in bridging the gap between the health service and community where now of
the community of Torres Strait islander have a structured and better access to the health services
which contribute a lot in improvising their good health and healthy living habits.
Reason for success
The Housing for healthy is a good initiative taken by the government of Australia which
contribute a lot in improving the healthy living practices of people and this program was also get
success in several and moving in progress. Some of the factors that leads to success in this
program are actions toward improving the safety measures to people which have immediate
threat to life such as issues related with the electricity, sewage, gas and structural safety was
addressed first after getting adequate data from the survey. Once these issues are being addressed
the next step is taken to provide a better healthy living practices by focusing on nine a major
focus point such as making shower work appropriately to give hot and cold water supply,
separate taps for washing machines for laundry, remove waste safely through removing blockage
in toilets and drains, improve the stove functionality and improving the food storage area so that
it remain free from bacteria (Davis, 2015). Other than this it also work toward building a strong
and healthier community by ensuring the community engagement by spreading knowledge
among them regarding health factor or importance of housing hardware which results into
6

improving the living standard of people when they contribute by their own toward improving
their living practices and cutting off unhealthy practices. These all are the factors that supported
this program of Housing for health get successfully run and provide benefit in several regard.
Identification of problem:
Summarise the problem
Though the Housing for health program was a greater initiative toward improving the
health and living conditions of people for reducing the health issues, but still there are certain
problems that are present within eth programs. The major problem of the program is that the
budget was very much limited which also limit the area of improvement as it only allow the
repairing of items that re immediate health benefit. But avoided areas like painting, guttering,
fencing etc. which is beyond the scope. Other problem was that the appropriate data regarding
what to do, where to improve was actually not available properly due to which several houses
left in term of repairing.
Reason of occurrence
The Australian government take initiative toward improving the life quality of people by
promoting equality within society. So for this it initiate a program Closing the gap where there
are number of targets or can say sub division of the initiative into smaller programs and the
Housing for health is one among them (Browne, Hayes and Gleeson, 2014). So the budget is
prepared for the whole initiative closing the gap and then sub divide the fund. This is the main
reason behind limited finance fro the housing for health program that results into development of
limited areas of house facilities.
Addition to this the reason for lack of availability of data regarding the work was there is
not appropriate and separate guidelines for the area of improvement was made which is to be
required by the workers for executing the plan effectively. This results into survey at limited area
and hence there was shortage of data about the area of improvement.
Solution to identify the problem
Rational and reasonable solution:
In order to resolve the issues related with the Housing for health program, the
government of Australia must focuses toward providing adequate fund for financing all the
activities in effective manner. For this it can focuses toward sourcing the fund from other
developed community or associations that wants to give their contribution toward the
7

development of aboriginal community. Another action can be taken toward improving the
research practices by providing the area to be investigated with appropriate availability of
resources (Cawley, 2018). After thoroughly analysing the area of improvement actions must be
taken which help in reducing waste and cost of the government.
Advantage and disadvantage of solution
The sourcing of fund may be effective for enhancing the results of program by providing
adequate finance for activities. The main advantage of this method is that organisations involve
in this development practice get future support from government easily which further contribute
toward development of country. Disadvantage of this is that when the fund arranged less from
the expectation that it may affect the continuing program or may result into delay (Bowes and
Grace, 2014).
On other side the main advantage s of performing research for the area of development is
that authority will get adequate information regarding the area in which they have to perform
work which help in forming a better action plan that provide better result. But it has a drawback
that such practices will take more time which increase the duration of work and hence it will take
both time and cost.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
From the above performed investigation it has been found that in order to promote
equality and well being of Torres Strait Island people the government of Australia has taken
initiative under closing the gap program for their development. Among them the Housing for
health is a target among the number of target decided under the CTG program. This was a great
initiative as the most positive side of this housing the health is that it contribute toward
performing a survey over the living condition of aboriginal people and issues they are facing.
Afterward inserting and improving eth hardware’s so that their conditions can be improved along
with the minimisation of issues that are resulting into increasing chronical diseases among
people and issues that har m their life. But there are certain shortcoming too present in this
program such as data was inappropriate and incomplete, lack of appropriate guidance among
workers regarding work to be executed etc. So, the program can be more improved if the
research practices can be enhanced as it help in gathering larger amount of data and detailed
information regarding area of improvement which help in brining clarity about actions to be
taken into consideration.
8

RECOMMENDATIONS
The housing for health program was organised and executed with an aim to improve the
living standards of people, as aboriginal people’s living conduction is so poor and consider to be
the main cause behind the increasing health issue among them. So, this program take initiative
toward improving this situation. Hence, to enhance the quality of this program following actions
can be undertaken,
 A detailed investigation must be performed by regularly visiting the locations where
improvement is to be made along with a list of actions to be taken.
 The areas where the actions are being taken to improving the housing and living
condition, regular inspection must be made that things are getting right.
 The people of that community must be regularly educated about the work or
improvements that they can bring by themselves in their housing work so that work
burden can be reduced and awareness among people help in improving the condition.
9

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Bowes, J. and Grace, R., 2014. Review of early childhood parenting, education and health
intervention programs for Indigenous children and families in Australia.
Browne, J., Hayes, R. and Gleeson, D., 2014. Aboriginal health policy: is nutrition the ‘gap’in
‘Closing the Gap’?. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 38(4),
pp.362-369.
Brueckner, M., Spencer, R., Wise, G. and Marika, B., 2014. Indigenous entrepreneurship:
Closing the gap on local terms. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 17(2), pp.2-24.
Cawley, P., 2018. Structural health monitoring: Closing the gap between research and industrial
deployment. Structural Health Monitoring, 17(5), pp.1225-1244.
Davis, M., 2015. Closing the gap in indigenous disadvantage: A trajectory of indigenous
inequality in Australia. Geo. J. Int'l Aff., 16, p.34.
Kalb, G., Le, T., Hunter, B. and Leung, F., 2014. Identifying Important Factors for Closing the
Gap in Labour Force Status between Indigenous and Non‐Indigenous A
ustralians. Economic Record, 90(291), pp.536-550.
McDonald, E.L., 2011. Closing the Gap and Indigenous housing. The Medical Journal of
Australia, 195(11), pp.652-653.
Online
10 Years of Housing for Health in NSW. 2010. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/environment/Publications/housing-health.pdf>.
Closing the Gap. 2020. [Online] Available through:
<https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/learn/health-system/closing-the-gap/>.
COAG STATEMENT ON THE CLOSING THE GAP REFRESH. 2018. [Online] Available
through: <https://www.coag.gov.au/sites/default/files/communique/coag-statement-
closing-the-gap-refresh.pdf>.
10