The Struggle of Indigenous People in Australia

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Australia has two different major Indigenous groups which are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the First Peoples of Australia, and these two different groups have diverse culture, world views and origin with dissimilar experience of colonisation over the past 222 years (Chino et al. 2010). Because of these periods of colonisation, inequalities are substantially existed for health, including infant health, life expectation, chronic and communicable diseases and mental health between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians (Calma 2005). Base on this fact, Australian Government targets to improve accessibility of effective healthcare services for Indigenous peoples, aiming to close the gap between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians in health (Anderson et al. 2007; Cunningham 2009). To reach better healthcare environment for Indigenous Australians, analysing approaches to health services for Indigenous Australians is imperative, comparing with other countries, especially in New Zealand, Canada and the United states of America where have led to successful health outcomes in their Aboriginal people’s health.

Statistically, 2.4% of total population is the total Aboriginal peoples, consisting with 90% of Aboriginal, 6% of Torres Strait Islander and 4% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in Australia. 14.5% of total New Zealand population is Maori, 3.3% of total Canadian population is Aboriginals, and less than 1.5% of total USA population is American Indians. Although these four countries have their distinctive culture, legal entitlements and history, they share a similar history of colonisation and poor health and social conditions among minority Aboriginal peoples (Anderson et al. 200...

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...cators of performance development (Cunningham 2009).

To conclude, the high burden of poor health status among Aboriginal peoples is significant in colonised countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. As this issue is discussed the above, definition of health among Indigenous populations is not merely the absence of disease or illness and is unable to be simply set up by statistics or measurements (Anderson et al. 2007; Cunningham 2009). Improvement of Indigenous health results could be obtained by understanding historical eras to gain current health status of Indigenous Australians (Keleher, Reynolds & Willis 2011). Comparing patterns and trends in different international settings is also compromised, in order to reach positive health outcomes by overcoming limitations of restricted and present healthcare systems (Anderson et al. 2007).

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