Indigenous Health And Wellbeing Essay

Topic 1: Indigenous Health and Wellbeing

Health and wellbeing are key aspects for every child including Indigenous children and it influences Indigenous children’s learning, development and physical health. There is one core factor that contributes to Indigenous children’s health and wellbeing. For instance, low socio economic status is one of the main issues that associated with poor health of Indigenous families (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013) because the family may not have enough currency to spend on healthy food, which brings a lack of nutrition to Indigenous students. As the lecturer, Linda Bonney (Lecture, 2017) indicated that Aboriginal children in Australia aged less than four years experience malnutrition at 29.6 times the rate for non-Aboriginal children. Likewise, Indigenous

parents with lower incomes provide inferior health information for their children, as they are been less educated. Indigenous parents with socioeconomic disadvantages also offer children less opportunity to access the local health care centre and medicines, as well as the poor infant diet is associated with poverty and may caused chronic disease later in their life (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2007).

However, there are other varieties of health problems that impact on Indigenous students’ health and wellbeing, such as nutrition, ear health, Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), and eye health.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have the highest prevalence of Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media (CSOM) in the world, which is a chronic infection of the middle ear caused by bacterial and viral pathogens (Lecture, 2017). The Lecturer (2017) also mentioned that FASD is a disorder affected when unborn babies are exposed to alcohol in the womb which they will have problem with cognitive abilities such as planning, language skills, reading, gross motor skills and memory. The data from the Western Australian Birth Defects Registry showed that 0.02 per 1000 births for non-Indigenous children in the FASD condition, whereas 2.76 per 1000 births for Indigenous children which was a large difference (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2015). It also causes Indigenous children with varying degrees of hearing loss. Although Aboriginal children have a good eye health, but educators still need to pay attention on the early detection of trachoma to exclude the

disorder.

To assist Indigenous children reduce the health issues, educators can use a wide range of strategies with learning. Firstly, one of the Aboriginal innovation case studies filmed in Derby District High School has provided a healthy lifestyle program based on the healthy food, which attract many Indigenous parents and children to participate to stay with the program (Department of Education WA, 2013). This school also provide the child health nurse for Indigenous parents to weight their babies and do health checks every week (Department of Education WA, 2013). Hence, Indigenous students who with low socioeconomic status have the opportunity to absorb nutrients and to know their children’s healthy condition. Secondly, educators can encourage Indigenous children and other children to blow nose and cough each morning before lessons start, and ask all children to wash hands regularly since the bacteria will go into the skin through touching (Lecture, 2017). Thirdly, educators can work with occupational therapists of the FASD from the local Indigenous community to support Indigenous children who with FASD (McLean & McDougall, 2014). Next, educators need to inspire the children to wash face and hand regularly for avoiding inflammatory trachoma.