Analysis of Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign in Australia, initiated by the Australian Human Rights Commission. The campaign aims to address health and life expectancy disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2031. The report outlines the campaign's objectives, implementation strategies, and the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It also compares the cultural and media landscapes of Australia and the United States to understand factors influencing the campaign's effectiveness. The analysis evaluates the campaign's success, identifying both achievements and ongoing challenges, such as the need for greater Indigenous community involvement and improvements in healthcare access. The report concludes by suggesting steps to enhance the campaign's impact, including expanding educational initiatives, fostering greater community participation, and protecting Indigenous cultural identity. The report also provides a detailed look at the regulatory environment and political systems of both Australia and the US and their impact on the campaign. Finally, the report provides a detailed look at the references used in the research.

RUNNING HEAD: Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
australian Human Rights Commission
Public Relationship Campaign
Close The Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
0

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
Thesis- Importance and effect of participation by the indigenous community in the
health care development programs.
Introduction
Indigenous community has become the most concerned factor for the Commonwealth
of Australia and other non-profit organizations. Different organizations are serving the same
purpose. This research paper will discuss the efforts made by the Australian government to
raise the living standards of indigenous communities by operating a health development
campaign and will compare the culture and other factors affecting the campaign with the
culture and other factors of the united states.
Summary of the campaign
Target: - To close the gap of health and life expectancy between indigenous and non-
indigenous people by 2031
Indigenous communities involving the two sectioned societies (1 Aboriginal 2 Trans
Strait Islander peoples) identified as the oldest living people of Australia. The situation of
these peoples is identified as very challenging and backward in the field of education, health
and life expectancy rate (Australian government; 2015). To develop the living standard of the
indigenous and non-indigenous people of Australia, the Australian Human Rights
Commission started a campaign naming, Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign. This
campaign is successfully identifying the health issues and challenges faced by the indigenous
community and trying closing the gap of health and life expectancy among the Aboriginal
and Trans Strait Islander peoples (AIHW, 2019).
Objectives and implementation of the campaign
1

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
The objective of the campaign is related to the promotion of safe healthy living and
high expectancy of life and finishing the gap between better health and the indigenous
communities (NIAA, 2018).
Implementation of the above campaign is based on the human rights and involvement
of the indigenous communities in the activities of the country as the legal citizen of Australia
(AHRC, 2019).
In the campaign "The Close the Gap Statement" is center or benchmark and indicates
the following –
Planning and developing, short and long term plans addressing the prevailing
inequalities to lead towards the equalities by the evidence-based practicing
Ensuring the involvement of all indigenous and non-indigenous communities of
Australia, with a target to develop the healthy living of the Aboriginal and Trans Strait
Islander peoples in the country and lead them towards the better health in living (Asfaw,
McGee, & Christianson, 2019).
Analysis of the difference between the United States and Australia
Culture
The practiced culture of Australia and the US are the same in many manners but the
difference among them can be seen on the following basis
 ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome ‘
In the US the attention is paid to every person and people usually try to understand the
message of the others and on the other side in Australia people usually avoid interaction with
the attention-seeking people (Hogarth, 2019).
2

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
The behavior of avoiding the presenting individuals by Australians can affect the indigenous
mentality; they will feel insecure to participate in the campaign hence the camping needs to
communicate the aspect of good health (Tom, 2018).
 Trust building
Australians are very difficult to win their trust while making any changes in building the
relationship of trust is very essential in Australian culture.
Americans are more focused on earnings and profit and loss rather than the trustor humanity
relations (Kim, 2017).
Media structure
Australia- Australian media deliver reliable and authentic content to the public
because the structure of media is controlled and operated by Australians Communications and
Media Authority (ACMA) and Australian Federal Police are authorized to raid the media
hubs to investigate and prevent the media from delivering the wring content.
United States- United States has the federal form of media control and wide area of
media coverage including print and electronic media. The cinema of the US is very popular
and the role played by the media we regulated and controlled by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) (Biddle, 2019).
Australia has a modern mass media industry including the traditional and modern
pattern of mass communication. Australian media include the print and electronic media
structure with the modification of the changing technologies. Media presentations help to
spread the object of the campaign to the country in every reign to create awareness about the
health safety campaign.
3

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
Regulatory environment & Political system
Australia-
Australian regulatory form is federal monarch in nature officially known as the
Commonwealth of Australia. Indigenous community is living in the continent about 65,000
years more before the European discovery. The bicameral system of the Australian
legislative house is affected by the Westminster system and federalism of the United States.
All the government and political entities are entitled to adapt the coalition form of political
parties and engaged to develop the continent.
United States
The state of the US is a federal republic, the biggest difference between Australian
and US. Political parties majorly include two parties dominating the state, the United States
invested greater power in the legislative and Supreme Court. The ideology of the US allows
equality in law and democracy (Oscar & Little, 2018).
Commonwealth of Australian government allows the rights to the indigenous people with
equality, but due to lack of education, this community is unaware hence the motive of this
campaign to create awareness about the legal rights and existence in Australia (Bennett,
2015).
An evaluation of the campaign
Adaptation of public relation campaign is not a new approach for the development of
the indigenous community, but the campaign is identified from recent few years, but the
introduction of the campaign in 2019, is focused on the three objectives,
Targeted or need-based primary health care
4

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
Good housing for good health
Responsive health care system
Aboriginal and Trans Islander Peoples are facing challenges from the decades and as
they are rich in the ancient culture and languages, protection is necessary for them. Because
they are facing high death rates compared to non-indigenous in Australia. Looking at this
matter seriously Australian government makes effective changes and plans to aware of the
communities about health safety and their development in the Australian culture (AHRC,
2019).
5

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
An analysis of the campaign
The campaign of Closing Gap to health and life expectancy is very successful in
Australia from last decades and new changes in the year 2018 to target the living of the
indigenous people to provide them good health seen as the essential element for the
development of these people. The addition of equality in social justice and equality in the
treatment of health issues are increasing. The living standards are improved but the health
issues are still challenging due to improper involvement of the indigenous communities in the
campaign. Many clinics and education center justice centers are designed to help and support
the life of the indigenous communities (AIHW, 2019).
The death rate ratio of the indigenous and nonindigenous communities up to 2017 has
a big difference and the rate of child death is seen high in the indigenous communities, due to
the unavailability of proper medical facilities and health issues of pregnant lady.
The campaign cannot be said to be completely successful because the indigenous
community is still facing the health issues and low life expectancy this need the continuous
long term attempts to make the effective changes in the field of the development of the
indigenous communities.
Steps that make the campaign better suited to the country’s environment
Australia is a developed country focused to develop the involvement of the people in
making the country developed in all manner, the indigenous community is the target to secure
the ancient history of Australia, and increasing the life expectancy rate of the communities, to
achieve these campaign is focusing on the following factors
Expanding education
6

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
To change and develop the community standard of the Aboriginal and Trans Islander
Peoples, the first step is to develop the involvement of the children in education. Educating
the community, for the essential facts of the effective health and living, to make them aware
of the good health and good living
Expanding involvement
The other factor of the campaign is based on making plans to involve the indigenous
communities to participate in the development programs organized in the campaign. Try to
involve the people in the activities with the motive to deliver good health everywhere (Hu,
2019).
Preventing culture
The most important aspect of the campaign is to prevent Australian culture, the
culture of Australia is from the indigenous communities and the campaign is targeting the
save the historical, religious, cultural identity of Australia given by the indigenous
communities.
Conclusion
This research is based on the identification of the recent public relations campaign in
Australia naming "Closing the Gap" campaign based to develop the health standards of the
indigenous people with the target of closing the gap between health and life expectancy of
indigenous and nonindigenous people of Australia.
7

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
References
AHRC. (2019, March 21). Close the Gap report – “Our Choices, Our Voices” (2019).
Retrieved October 17, 2019, from humanrights.gov.au:
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-
social-justice/publications/close-gap-report-our
AIHW. (2019, March 21). Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign. Retrieved October
18, 2019, from the Australian Human Rights Commission:
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-
social-justice/projects/close-gap-indigenous-health
AIHW. (2019, July 17). Deaths in Australia. Retrieved October 17, 2019, from Australian
government: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-death/deaths/contents/
life-expectancy
Asfaw, H. W., McGee, T. K., & Christianson, A. C. (2019). Evacuation preparedness and the
challenges of emergency evacuation in Indigenous communities in Canada: The case
of Sandy Lake First Nation, Northern Ontario. International journal of disaster risk
reduction, 55-63.
Australian government;. (2015, August). Enhancing the implementation of the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. Retrieved October 7, 2019,
from AIFS home: https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/enhancing-implementation-
aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-child/strategies
Bennett, B. (2015). Stop deploying your white privilege on me!” Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander engagement with the Australian Association of Social Workers. Australian
Social Work, 68(1), 19-31.
8

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
Biddle, N. (2019, February 14). Four lessons from 11 years of Closing the Gap reports.
Retrieved October 19, 2019, from The conversation Academic rigor, journalistic flair:
https://theconversation.com/four-lessons-from-11-years-of-closing-the-gap-reports-
111816
Hogarth, M. (2019, February 15). There’s little reason for optimism about Closing the Gap,
despite changes to education targets. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from the
conversation: https://theconversation.com/theres-little-reason-for-optimism-about-
closing-the-gap-despite-changes-to-education-targets-111840
Hu, J. B. (2019). Does attending Work It Out–a chronic disease self-management program–
affect the use of other health services by urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people with or at risk of chronic disease? A comparison between program participants
and non-participants. Australian journal of primary health.
Kim, A. Z. (2017, July 14). American Culture: Traditions and Customs of the United States.
Retrieved October 22, 2019, from live science: https://www.livescience.com/28945-
american-culture.html
NIAA. (2018). Closing the Gap. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from niaa.gov.au:
https://www.niaa.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/closing-gap
Oscar, J., & Little, L. (2018, February 8). Closing the gap on Indigenous health: this is our
national shame, but it can be fixed. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from
abc.net.au/news: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-08/closing-the-gap/9407824
Tom, S. (2018, February 17). 11 Things You Should Know About Australian Culture.
Retrieved October 22, 2019, from culture trip:
9

Closing the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign
https://theculturetrip.com/pacific/australia/articles/11-things-you-should-know-about-
australian-culture/
10