NUM3511 Community Health Care: Wyndham Aboriginal Assessment

This report presents a community health assessment of Wyndham, a regional town in Western Australia, with a specific focus on Aboriginal young adults aged 12 to 18. The assessment begins with an introduction to the unique geographic and ethnic diversity of Australia, highlighting the health disparities faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, including higher rates of chronic diseases and limited access to healthcare. The report provides a demographic overview of Wyndham, detailing the population size, age distribution, and socioeconomic factors. It then delves into the prevalent health issues within the target group, such as obesity, diabetes, mental health disorders, and substance abuse, and analyzes the social determinants of health, including socioeconomic status, education, employment, and access to services. The report emphasizes the impact of these factors on health outcomes and concludes by summarizing key findings and implications for community health interventions.

Running head: COMMUNITY HEALTH CARE
COMMUNITY HEALTH CARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Title : Group 1 : A regional town in Western Australia with a focus on the young adult
age range 12 to 18 years
Introduction
Australia is not only unique for its geographic remoteness, but the diverse ethnicities
of Australia. Apart from the various ethnic minorities residing in Australia, the Aboriginal
and the Torres Strait Islanders are the indigenous people of Australia. An estimated of about
798,365 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people reside in Australia. These indigenous
group of people are susceptible to higher rates of deaths due to the burden of chronic
diseases, like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, asthma and mental health disorders.
They also face issues related to equal access to health care facilities and racism and
discrimination in every aspects of life.
This paper will provide a community assessment of the regional town Wyndham, that
houses a community of several aboriginals. The report will provided an epidemiological base
of the target population along with its social determinants of health that will affect the chosen
community.
Chosen town: Wyndham, which the most oldest and northern most town of Kimberley
region present in Western Australia.
Chosen target group: aboriginal young adults within the age range 12-18 years.
Demographics
The city of Wyndham is located on the northern most town of the Kimberly region
situated in Western Australia. The area covers 542 square kilometres having a population
density of about 4.21 person per hectare. The traditional owners of the Wyndham region are
the Aboriginals who lived there for about 40,000 years (Australian Bureau of Statistics.

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2016). The three main aboriginal communities that lived in this area included Marpeang
bulluk, Kurung jang balluk, Yalukit William. In 2016, the Wyndham region had the
largest Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander community region with a total young
population of about 1789, which consisted of 53.7% of the total population in Wyndham
(ABS, 2016). There are 52.4% male and 47.6 % female. The growth in the number of the
young Aboriginal people in the Wyndham region is about 1.5 times faster in comparison to
the other States. In the 2016, census, it has been stated that there were 49.9 % male and
50.1% of female population. The median age of the people residing in the Wyndham region
is about 22 years. The Wyndham Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander community has the
largest proportion of individuals under the age of 15 and smaller proportion of people above
the age of 60 years (Wyndham City.gov, 2018). About 5.5% of the population are between
the age ranges 15-19 years. Less than half of the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander
population in Wyndham have Christian faith (ABS, 2016). There are about 785 aboriginal
households in Wyndham. However, it has been found that majority of the aboriginal people
residing in this region have secular beliefs, some spiritual beliefs, but no religion. A larger
proportion of the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders are single parent family
households. In terms of the attainment of education, the rate of 12 standards completion vary
starkly among the aboriginals within the age range 12-18 (ABS, 2018). In the year 2016,
about the 34 % of the Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander people over 15 years of age
have completed their education. About 46.6% have attended the educational institution, of
which 33.3 % attending primary school and 22.1 % attending a secondary school (ABS,
2016). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Wyndham within this age range have
experienced lower educational attainment than the Aboriginals residing in the Victorian
region and the greater area of Melbourne. According to the Census data of 2011, most of the
Wyndham Aboriginal residents are the Clerical and the workers for administrative work

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(15%) and the Technicians the Trade Workers (12.8%) have been found to be the largest
occupational type among the aboriginal people (Wyndham City.gov, 2018). The median
weekly personal income for the ATSI people was $509 and the median weekly household
income had been $1,483 (ABS, 2016). The percentage of homelessness among the
aboriginals within the age range 12-18 have risen so far. A lower proportion of the
aboriginals stays their own home in comparison to the non-aboriginal residents. About 10 %
of the aboriginal population had their owned outright at Wyndham.
Wyndham population 12 to 25 year olds, 2016
Source: (ABS,2016)
Health issues
The environment and the amenity plays an important role in the well-being of the
community. The demographic factors of social isolation and the socio-economic
disadvantage is another main cause for the disease of the disease burden among the
Aboriginal population. The overall good physiological condition and wellbeing is critical to
evade a number of diseases that are preventable. The current physical health and the activity
data have shown that the adolescents (12-18) years are not spending enough time on doing
physical activities. The rates of obesity and the diabetes among the young people are much

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high. Less than half of the young people (12-18) years are not getting the recommended
amount of physical activities in a week. It has been found that the youngsters across North
and West Metro area (ABS, 2016). About 25 % of the young people residing in this area has
been considered as to be obese. Just over half of the teenage population (52%) residing in
Wyndham faces an increased risk of alcoholism. About 13 % of the adults in Wyndham
smoke (ABS, 2018). The total number of hospitalization for the use of illicit substance use is
increasing per 10,000 population. It can be understood from the profiling, that the area is
likely to have elevated rates of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and mental health. The
leading type of cardiovascular disease found in this region is stroke and ischaemic heart
disease. A per the reports, the two major type of respiratory diseases are asthma and chronic
obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). In the year 2016 the most common reason of cancer
in the Wyndham of the Kimberley region in men were prostate, colorectal, lung cancer and
melanoma (Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2016).
Some of the leading reasons of hospitalizations in the Kimberly region were related to
the factors affecting the health status, contact with the health services, poisoning and injury.
The potential preventable hospitalizations have also found to be significantly higher when
compared with the State. Among the Aboriginals the PPH was four times greater than that of
the Non-aboriginals (Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2016). There lies a huge differences in
the life expectancies of the Aboriginal people when compared to the non-aboriginal people.
There had been higher rates of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, kidney
failure, mental health dieses, and alcohol related deaths if compared to the non- Aboriginal
residents in the Kimberly region. Obesity is normally accounts to about 80-85% of the
predisposing factor of developing type 2 diabetes, while it has been suggested by the recent
researches that people with high BMI are about 80 times more susceptible diabetes than
those having BMI less than 22 (AIHW, 2019). It is clearly evident from the profiling that,

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many of the teenagers are not physically much active due to which the rate of obesity and
diabetes is much high. Furthermore, the food insecurity also plays a huge role in the
development of the chronic diseases. Some of the other leading health issues in this region
are lack of proper birthing services. There had been large body of evidences for
demonstrating, that the ATSI women get poor health facilities, poor mental health outcomes,
poor perinatal health, higher percentages of infant mortality, greater percentage of teenage
mothers to deliver babies with lower average body weight. In this region, most of the women
giving birth are below the age of 20. 22.7 % of the aboriginal mothers were teenagers.
Proportion of the Kimberly woman who smoke during time of pregnancy is high among the
aboriginals in comparison to the non-aboriginals (Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2016).
Depression and suicide has been one of the leading cause of death among individuals within
the age range 12-15years. In Western Australia, the chronic diseases are managed by the
doctors and the aboriginal medical facilities. Specialized care is accessible at the WA country
health service regional resource centre. There are no community and public health services
situated in Wyndham region. However, some of the aboriginal medical services includes
Beagle Bay Community Health Service. There had been a history of syphilis among the
young people of the Kimberley region. Additionally, Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea are sexually
transmitted disease that has been found in the Kimberley region. Currently, the vaccination
coverage of the Kimberley region has been 90 %, but a coverage is low for the disease like
hepatitis. There had been relatively now immunity against Chicken pox (Australian Bureau of
Statistics. 2016).
Majority the diabetic patient of this region have type 2 diabetes. Among the various
chronic conditions diabetes has been ranked number one (about 20 % of all the cases of
potential preventable hospitalizations). There is also evidence that ATSI adolescents (12-18
years) are eight times more vulnerable to develop type 2 diabetes than the non-aboriginals

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(ABS, 2017). In context to the high rates of diabetes among the Australian adolescents, the
ATSI people have abnormally high density lipoprotein cholesterol (1.8 times) and
triglycerides (1.9 times). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not generally meet
the guidelines for daily fruit consumption (0.9 times) or daily vegetable consumption (0.8
times) than non-Indigenous people (ABS, 2017).
Proportion (%) of GP visits due to diabetes types by LGA, PATCAT data (2015-17)
Source: (PHN, 2017).
Social Determinants of Health
Social determinants of Health are the complex circumstances in which individuals are
born, live and that influence their health. These includes both the tangible as well as the
intangible factors. The factors are political factors, the socio-economic factors, the cultural
constructs as well as the infrastructure where people had been staying, along with the
education system, the safe environmental conditions, well designed neighbourhoods and the
availability of the healthy food (Marmot & Allen, 2014). As stated by the World Health
Organisation, the circumstances are shaped by the distribution of power, money and
resources at a global, local and the national level (World Health Organisation, 2018). The
region face challenges in the provisions of such local infrastructure and services for meeting

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the growth of the population, leading to housing, transport , housing, stress and poorer access
to the services (Markwick et al, 2013).
According to the Socio-economic Indexes for the areas (SEIFA) calculated on a score
of 1000. The Wyndham region scored 893 which indicates towards any sort of disadvantages
related to health care in that facility (AIHW, 2019).
Some of main determinants of poor health in the Kimberly region is the lack of the
proper employment for the youth, which is resulting in poverty (Reading & Greenwood,
2018). According to the report published by ABS, suicide is at a crisis level and many
teenagers go in to depression due to the lack of job opportunities and money. Low socio-
economic status has been found to be an important determinant of mental illness
(McLaughlin et al., 2012). One might develop psychological issues for not getting
employment as per the AIHW (2016).It has been found that the unemployed youths are twice
as likely to be involved in the illicit use of drugs. The percentage of Alcoholism and tobacco
consumption has been found to be much higher among the ATSI people residing in the
Kimberly region. Those having higher addiction for drug abuse and tobacco use have been
found a higher percentage of coronary heart disease, diabetes and obesity. One of the main
factor associated with poor economic status is the food insecurity (Wight et al., 2017). A
large body of researches have suggested that food insecurity is low income (Temple &
Russell, 2018). People of low SES cannot get access to fresh food and vegetables due to the
high price of the fresh fruits and vegetables (Muldoon, Duff, Fielden & Anema, 2013). When
the income is limited and constrained, the households might be forced to make unhealthy
food choices. Drug use has been linked with poor quality of diet, hunger and increased risk of
malnutrition and the food insecurity (McCarthy, Chang & Brimblecombe, 2018). Food
insecurity is the leading cause of chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Most of the indigenous people residing in the Wyndham region do not get or receive the

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recommended amount of fresh food and consumption of vegetables. Another essential
determinants of health involves unequal access to the health care facilities by the Aboriginal
people. 50% of the Aboriginal residents have faced with discrimination and racism while
seeking health care facilities, more than once in their lifetime.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the residents (12-18 years) of the Wyndham region in
the Kimberley suffers from a range of health issues like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular
diseases and respiratory diseases. Some of the determinants of health responsible for the
burden of disease is low employment , low health literacy, food insecurity and unequal access
to the health care facilities.
Some of the measures that needs to be taken by the government are-
 Government should focus on increasing the vaccination region-wide.
 The health issues specific to the Aboriginal population needs to be focussed upon.
 Services needs to be implemented that target the younger age structure of the
particular region.
 It necessary to focus on the morbidity issues related to the health issues like mental
health, cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

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