Health Disparities in Australia: Indigenous and Chinese Groups

This essay delves into the factors impacting health outcomes within Australian culturally diverse communities, specifically comparing Indigenous Australians and Chinese immigrants. It explores historical events, such as the impact of colonization on Indigenous Australians and the experiences of Chinese immigrants in gold mining and business, as well as current events including discrimination and socioeconomic disparities. The essay analyzes healthcare policies and service approaches, highlighting the differences in how these groups access and utilize healthcare. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the social determinants of health, cultural orientations, and the need for policies that promote equitable healthcare access for all Australians. The comparison reveals how historical injustices, cultural differences, and current socioeconomic factors contribute to health disparities. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for the Australian government to address these disparities by creating healthcare policies that are sensitive to cultural differences and ensure equitable access to services for all communities.

Running Head: Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse
Communities 1
Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities
Name
Institution
Date

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 2
Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities
Introduction
Health and well-being disparities have characterized Australian communities for a
long time now with the members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People
contending with the most adverse healthcare outcomes (Australian Human Rights
Commission, 2007). Indeed, the United Nations have since dared to label these disparities a
human rights issue in Australia and the Australian federal, state and territorial governments
accepting it as such (Dudgeon, et al., 2010). A great deal of historical and current social
determinants of health, as well as existing health care policies and services, explain the
emergence and progress of this situation. Against this backdrop, this paper will endeavor to
extrapolate though comparison the historical and current events as well as healthcare policies
and service provision impacting health risks factors and/or influencing health and wellbeing
outcomes of two diverse Australian groups: Indigenous Australians and Chinese Immigrants.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People
Historical Events
The plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People relating to their continuous
adverse health and wellbeing outcomes dates back to the colonial period when the British
Empire first set foot on the Australian soil in 1788 (McBain‐Rigg, & Veitch, 2011). These
indigenous groups who were then and still significantly are hunters and gatherers were
pushed from their ancestral homes to remote regions of Australia by the British colonizers.
These remote regions where most indigenous Australians still reside today have been left
behind both socially and economically creating an ample platform for long-term health and
wellbeing plight (Commonwealth of Australia, 2013). Moreover, due to their perceived
timidity and cultural orientation, these people have further been subjected to more suffering
as they are stereotypically seen to be primitive and backward (Waterworth, et al., 2015).

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 3
The British empire immediately declared Australia as devoid of human inhabitants
and pre-existing civilization and moved ahead to settle and possess it despite the presence of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. This was declared under the doctrine of terra
nullius. The British Empire instituted perceived human occupancy and developed western
culture civilization (O'Dowd, 2011). Any resistance from indigenous Australians was met by
punitive massacres like the 1838 one that saw 300 Aborigines lose their lives in just three
days while those living in Tasmania being literally wiped out altogether (Pilot Guides, 2018).
Through the Assimilation policy, the Australian government sort to eliminate the indigenous
people in 1900s by removing and separating indigenous children from their parents to acquire
white culture on the premise of “white supremacy” over “black supremacy” leading to
“Stolen Generations” emergence (Home, 1997). Stolen Generations descendants continue to
suffer adverse health and wellbeing related to the atrocities their fore generations were
subjected to.
In the 1800s, indigenous Australians were locked in reserves where they would live in
deplorable and abusive conditions and subjected to forced labor besides being locked out
from national census. Exemption policies of the 1940s and 1960s acted to break indigenous
families more as they involved conditions of denying association with indigenous
communities and cultures. This effectively took away the indigenous community’s self-
esteem and trust tying them together as communities (Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet,
2017). Despite there being tremendous efforts to change this adverse historical narrative
including the abandonment of the assimilation policy, citizenship status acquisition, and
recognition of Australia under the Native Title, and a public apology, the Indigenous People
continue to suffer adverse determinants of health today (Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission, 2008).
Current Events

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 4
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2018) indicate that indigenous people
today continue to face humiliation episodes of discrimination, intimidation, abuse, physical
violence, sexual harassment, police brutality, and incarceration which further promote their
adverse health outcomes. They are also likely to be involved in drugs and substance,
uneducated and underemployed or completely locked out of formal employment.
Healthcare policies and Healthcare Service Approaches
The healthcare policies currently operating in Australian are high of a Western
Culture with the biomedical modeling being the prime means of delivering healthcare
services. Though relevant to the contemporary Australian society, Herring, Spangaro, Lauw,
& McNamara, (2013) assert that indigenous people do not only attach significance to modern
healthcare strategies and approaches but also attach a lot of importance to holistic health and
wellbeing facets. These include community self-esteem and dignity; physical environment;
connection to spirituality, body, mind, emotions, family, kinship, ancestors; and social
justice. As such, mismatches between this sociocultural orientation and modern healthcare
policies and healthcare service delivery explain the continuousness of negative healthcare
outcomes within Indigenous communities (First Peoples Disability Network, 2017).
Chinese Immigrants
Historical Events
The Chinese immigrants were second to Great Britain to set foot on Australian
primarily motivated by trade and gold mining in Bendigo and Ballarat. The Chinese arrived
in Australians early as the 1800s and their numbers swelled besides the passing of policies
restricting immigration into Victoria in 1855 owing to porous borders (Bagnall, 2011). The
Chinese immigrants faced many challenges and hardships in the goldfields including
prejudice and general discrimination. However, their influence in this period marked a long-
term effect in Australian history through the establishment of Chinatowns in most Australian

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 5
cities which greatly impacted their general health and well-being positively. Moreover, at the
end of the gold rush in the 1880s, many Chinese immigrants remained in Australia where
they continued in business especially in banana trade and others took jobs in different fields
further strengthening their positive social determinants of health (Cooke, Zhang, & Wang,
2013).
In fact, the 1898 Tung Wah Newspaper and the increasing number of Chinese
immigrants led to the reintroduction of the Immigration Restriction Act restricting non-
Europeans to enter Australia in 1901. This same year marked the federation year of Australia.
The Australian government feared possible Chinese inversion. However, non-Europeans
immigration policies were lifted between 1949 and 1973 with the Racial Discrimination Act
being passed in 1975 making it unlawful successfully marking the end of “White Australian
Policy” (Bagnall, 2011). Following this milestone, Chinese immigrants have continued to
settle in Australian until today. The Chinese history in Australian is greatly punctuated by
events that marked great achievements in securing their overall health and wellbeing status
through the strengthening of their socioeconomic footing.
Current Events
The Chinese constitute some of the most educated groups in Australia with formal
employment. They are less likely to be involved in crime or face humiliation, discrimination,
abuse, physical violence, sexual harassment, police brutality, and incarceration. This aspect
places them at ample position of optimizing positive health outcomes from available health
care systems. However, a lot of Chinese immigrants works for longer hours than average and
likely to contend with adverse determinants of health like poor housing, unemployment,
language barrier limitation and some form of racial discrimination.
Healthcare policies and Healthcare Service Approaches

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 6
Although the Chinese were discriminated upon based on their unique cultures
including the use of Chinese medications during the gold rush; the Australian healthcare
system has since incorporated/aligned some form of Chinese medicine into its current
healthcare policies and healthcare service provision (State of Queensland; Metro South
Health, 2015)The Chinese herbal medicine practitioners were practicing Chinese medicine on
Victorian goldfields as early as 1887 and actually in 1911 the Chinese herbal remedies were
seen in Australian streets labeled in English (Garvey, 2011). Chinese medicine gained more
recognition in the Australian mainstream healthcare system upon the establishment of
Australian-Chinese diplomatic relations in 1970 which saw the beginning of Sydney
acupuncture training. With regard to health care service provision, the Chinese attach a lot of
significance to the family to help them with recovery since most Chinese assume the sick
role. Healthcare practitioners are perceived as uncaring when independence is emphasized.
The Chinese utilize both Chinese medications alongside Australian system medication and
policies (Garvey, 2011).
Comparison: Indigenous Australians and Chinese Immigrants
History and Current Events
While the Indigenous Australians has had a rough history right from the moment
when they were first colonized by the British who disposed them and subjected them to
subsequent extreme humiliation, the Chinese immigrants were at this time building their
socioeconomic platform in Australia through gold mining and business. This explains the
transgenerational passage of adverse social determinants of health among the Indigenous
Australians than is the case among Chinese Immigrants. Though both faced some form of
discrimination and intimidation from their European counterparts, this was more pronounced
within Indigenous communities since the Chinese enjoyed some privileges such as the free
visit to public spaces like hospitals.

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 7
This social exclusion menace is exhibited today through the high poverty rates,
homelessness, incarceration, poor education, and high unemployment rates which explain
indigenous peoples’ deplorable health and wellbeing status today. Moreover, indigenous
Australians continue to contend with adverse social determinants of health today than their
Chinese immigrant counterparts owing to current events such as negative public portrayal by
the media, unfair institutionalized discrimination, intimidation and unfair incarceration by the
state, and extrajudicial killings (Garvey, 2008). The more than 200 years of humiliation,
murder, abuse, displacement, assimilation, culture extinction, spiritual upheaval and the
current low standards of living explain the current adverse healthcare conditions of
indigenous people that is the case with Chinese immigrants (Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander People Social Justice Commissioner, 2005).
Healthcare policies and Healthcare Service Strategies
Upon the introduction of British rule, modern health and wellbeing policies were
introduced favoring western civilization and other cultural orientations including the Chinese
Immigrants. This has greatly disadvantaged Indigenous Australians than is the case with
Chinese Immigrants who practiced their Chinese medicine from the very beginning. Indeed,
Chinese medicine has more or less been incorporated/ aligned to the mainstream healthcare
policies of Australia giving them an opportunity to exploit either the same or the Australian
biomedical services. Paradies, Harris, and Anderson, (2008) posit that modern healthcare
policies and healthcare delivery services fail to align with the health and wellbeing needs of
Indigenous Australians as well as their sociocultural orientations explaining the reason why
they are unable to fully exploit them like the Chinese Immigrants. This is because indigenous
Australians attach their health and wellbeing more on their land, spirituality, community
attachments, and self-esteem, environment, and cultures than mare medical services (Calma,
Dudgeon, & Bray, 2017). Chinese

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 8
Conclusion
By and large, the Australian historical and current events have overly disadvantaged
Indigenous People extensively with non-indigenous groups such as Chinese Immigrants
benefiting more in all spheres of Australian social life including health care access and
coverage. The Australian government must endeavor to amicably solve the social
determinants of health disparities to allow all Australian communities equally and fairly
access healthcare regardless of their socioeconomic and cultural orientations. This includes
formulating healthcare policies and healthcare service provision strategies that equalize
healthcare services access and consumption by both indigenous Australians and Chinese
Immigrants. Both Indigenous Australians and Chinese Immigrants have a strong attachment
to their traditional medication and culture and therefore respecting their dignity as a people
and their sociocultural integrity and beliefs can go a long way in merging healthcare access
and consumption disparities (Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee, 2012).

Factors Impacting Health Outcomes of Australian Culturally Diverse Communities 9
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