Factors Affecting Health Of Indigenous Australians: Historical And Contemporary Factors

Social determinants affecting indigenous Australians’ health

The important factors are needed to be taken into account regarding the health problems. Certain provisions determine the health of Australian indigenous people that they are suffering in a true sense. These factors are more considered to be ecologic.  The social determinants include social networks, stress, support, these determinants are pushing the indigenous people to be more social. However, their culture, traditions, beliefs and maintaining customs play an important role in determining the conditions of health of a human being (Ford, 2012).  People who are indigenous in Australia are affected by the socio- economic disadvantages and other social factors. Availability of the poor nutrition and the emergence of the contemporary techniques is bringing a change indigenous people’s life. Food security has become a major issue for them in this contemporary era (Ford, 2012). The historical factors and racism plays an important role in this context

The distressful history was experienced by the indigenous group of Australia which involved colonization and also oppressions and these factors continued to affect both physical and psychological indigenous people’s mental status quo. (Sherwood, 2013; Short et al., 2016).  The determinant of psychology can be judged on the basis of indigenous people’s history and this enhanced a psychological trauma in their mind (Sherwood, 2013). This psychological distress affects the health of the person and also draws a line between the indigenous and people of Australia who are not indigenous. The issue of poverty and inequality falls under the systematic historical discrimination that they are still experiencing.   Inequality in terms of racism and income and poverty which are finally the negative social determinants affecting the health of the person (Sherwood, 2013).  The oppression of the colonial rule and the treatment they tolerated since the historical time is still being experienced in a more innovative manner in this contemporary era.

Contemporary factors: The factors based on contemporary happenings, that are influencing the indigenous people’s health conditions are the food security, taking alcohol, social factors, illicit drug take and alcohol. These are the vital elements affecting the physique of this particular group of Australia (Sepherd et al., 2012).

Food security: Indigenous population’s food security is heavily affected by the low availability of the nutrition which led to the rise of obesity, over weight and also increases the rate of malnutrition. The income of the indigenous people is low which make them paralyzed to buy proper nutritive food to fulfill their hunger and health (Sepherd et al., 2012). According to the survey, the low nutritive food consumed by the indigenous people caused of 5.7% deaths (Gibson et al., 2015).

Historical factors affecting indigenous Australians’ health

Alcohol:  Alcohol is being consumed by the indigenous people aged 14 years old and they are inclined to have alcohol surpassing the non- indigenous people. In the year 2008-09, indigenous people of Western Australia were admitted to hospital for drinking  alcohol which affected their mental behavior as well as the physical behavior. (Ewen et al., 2012). However, it has been noted that maximum people do not drink alcohol from the indigenous group and its number has come down than the previous year (Gibson et al., 2015).

Using illicit drug: The using of the illicit drugs in the contemporary era are being the major factors of the degradation of the health care system. The use of heroin, cocaine and solvents led to the increase of diseases in the Australian indigenous people (Bodkin et al., 2016). The rise of aids, chronic diseases become the main issues causing death. It has been reported that the 3.4% of the diseases are being carried by this group of  Australia and this also led to many deaths. The consumption of the drugs is quite high among the 14 years old children.

Tobacco: the use of tobacco is quite high among the indigenous people. According to this 45% people are addicted to tobacco. 68% of indigenous children are living with someone who daily smokes (Gibson et al., 2015).  

Social factors including both historical and contemporary factors are also major social determinants affecting the life of the indigenous people.

The maintenance of the historical factors including retaining the traditional culture of removing children from the families, affects the children.  This practice leads to the growth of behavioral and mental problems within the children. This enhancing risk of being hyperactive, emotional and also the children gets inclined to taking drugs and alcohol.

There is news regarding the incident that the indigenous women are treated as the victims of crime. They are exposed to different discrimination in this contemporary era. The socio- economic conditions faced by them in terms of violence, income and discrimination in the community are quite intense as well in this contemporary era (Anderson et al., 2016). This in turn affects the psychological mindset of the persons. The family violence, sexual violence, drugs abuses are the parts of the indigenous family. This accordingly being in turn affects the women and children of the indigenous women and children (Garcia et al., 2015). The maintenance of racism is still being retained till now from the perspective of both historical and contemporary factors.  

Contemporary factors affecting indigenous Australians’ health

Racism is an historic factor which is still affecting the health of the indigenous people. They are being deprived by the people who are not indigenous from   economic facilities, housing education and other social supports. Even the direct impacts of the racism also encourage any health assault. Racism also hurt indigenous people’s emotions in terms of producing negativity and positivity in the person. The negative mentality leads to the failure of the endocrine and the cardiovascular systems. The negative response of the racism also incorporates alcohol taking and drug abusers (Ewen et al., 2012; Bodkin et al., 2016). It has been reported that non- indigenous patients compared to the indigenous people get more medical care in all conditions. It has been also stated that the indigenous people are less likely to have implantation of kidney (Paradies et al., 2012).

According to one of the survey reports, racism always posed a negative impact on the indigenous health. It leads to the immense bad health conditions. It leads to psychological distress, diabetes, smoking and taking drugs. Racism is considered to be also a historical problem since the colonization (Anderson et al., 2016). The colonial people subjugated the indigenous people for their purposes and they were being treated horribly by the colonizers. The history of maintaining this domination is still being followed till date. The social aspects are becoming more problematic for them in this current situation in Australia (Paradies et al., 2012). The Western Australians faced this tremendous inequality on the basis of taking advantages from the society. The less access to the educational facility and access to the health centers. Due to the rise of Racism, the deaths among the indigenous people have increased which caused due to the heart diseases and also cancers related to lungs, according to a report of 2015 (Anderson et al., 2016). Even the racism permits the lack of education to the poor children. This lack of education led to the belief in the unscientific traditional culture and the food habits, which in turn affecting the health care system of this race

Perspectives of Indigenous Australian people state that the indigenous people prefer wellbeing based on society to mental priority. It means that the social and emotional well being of the person can lead to the development of the good health. In the society if one person mixes with everyone freely, the person can get motivated and from the inside, the person would start feeling strong (Smylie & Firestone, 2016). Similarly, if the person has been given access to the different institutions such as economic, welfare and education, they will get motivated and agree to go ahead in the cultural lifestyle.

Importance of food security and its impact on health

In this respect it needs to be kept in mind that no discrimination should be done on the basis of the groups and races of the country. The discrimination would lead to the psychological changes and affect the person’s inner tranquility. This is the reason why the indigenous people refer to equality. However, to judge this from the current perspective, the indigenous people suffer from traumatic conditions in respect to the ill treatment still being done to them on the basis of their race and culture (Smylie & Firestone, 2016). Racism is a major social cause which in turn degrades the health of the people as already mentioned before. Equality is being violated on the ground of unequal access to the hospitals and getting treatment like the non- indigenous people. This led to the degradation of health and indigenous population was affected out of these consequences. Even according to the reflection of the population, their psychology is badly affected. The history states that they are being subjugated by the colonizers and their non- accessibility to land gave birth to the psychological distress which is adversely affecting the health of the particular race (Altman et al., 2012). Racism, poverty, inequality are the social determinants affecting the lifestyle of these indigenous people. With time and tide, the government also took steps to help them out in respect to their health care system.

Conclusion

On a concluding note it could be stated that, the indigenous Australian people are the part of the country Australia. However, due to their historical past, the violence on them are still being retained socially and this in turn is affecting their health care system out of the reasons of racism and other social factors. The Historical and the Contemporary factors are evident from this respect and these factors such as social determinants contribute to the health system of Australia’s indigenous group. The perspectives of the Australian people should also be taken into account in terms of the equal rights. It is the people of Australia who can bring the changes to this affected group.

References

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