Professional Practice Nursing: Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander- Nursing Essay Writing Assignment
Task:
While there have been some improvements in the health and well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in recent decades, Indigenous Australians remain considerably more disadvantaged in long term health and socioeconomic outcomes compared with their non-Indigenous counterparts (AIHW 2014). Indigenous Australians experience higher rates of poor health, poverty, poor nutrition, inadequate housing and other social and health problems relative to non-Indigenous Australians (Mitrou et al. 2014). This disparity in health and social outcomes is often the result of a complex array of interrelated cultural, economic, environmental, geographical and social factors that impact upon the health and well-being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Much of this observed discrepancy has been attributed to so-called “determinants of health” factors, which are defined as those non-health indicators of life outcomes which influence an individual’s health status across the course of their life (Canuto et al. 2017). These determinants of health factors are listed below.
Determinants of health factors:
Education
Employment and income
Housing
Location
Racism and racial discrimination
Community safety
Transport
Health behaviours and lifestyle (e.g. tobacco use, alcohol consumption, physical activity, diet and nutrition).
