• Guest editorial - Australian Minister for Health and Ageing - The Honourable Nicola Roxon
• Biggest contributor to Aboriginal health gap is smoking
• “They just don't get it” – CRCAH patron on saying sorry
• CEITC takes its training kit to Indigenous communities
• Indigenous Public Health Network
• Building effective primary health care – Dr Noel wins award
• La Trobe student to work in Kintore as renal education continues
• Positive thoughts about the future – For Our Children Conference
• New NHMRC alcohol guidelines
• Mick Gooda selects Bulletin magazine's top ten
• Health and History - special edition on Indigenous health
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework 2006 Report
• CRCAH host historic Aboriginal prisoners research roundtable
• New DVD features prison stories
  

• Improving prisoner access to health services – new UQ Project
• Mibbinbah project moves forward
• Diabetes research centre launched
• Sharing Indigenous health knowledge across the world
• Latest cannabis research results from Arnhem Land
• Racism and Indigenous Health Symposium to Set Research Agenda

• Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise,
  Exit Aboriginal Australia
• 2006-07 Annual Report is now available

• Scholarships available for young Indigenous Australians
• More Indigenous researchers needed - Daniel Mulholland
• Nicole takes out top award
• Consultation—Indigenous Public Health Curriculum Framework
• Kalinda Griffiths

Guest editorial - Nicola Roxon - Australian Minister for Health

The Rudd Labor Government is committed to building a national consensus to improve the social and economic wellbeing of Indigenous people, to enable them to exercise their rights and meet their responsibilities as members of the broader Australian community.

We also recognise that all governments – state and territory as well as federal - have a responsibility to work together and in collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to turn this disadvantage around. The mark of a just and fair society is how well it treats its most disadvantaged citizens.

The Rudd Labor Government is determined to see change through policy rigour. We want to see evidence-based programs which avoid bureaucracy and are designed in partnership with Indigenous people.

The challenge that remains is a significant one. The health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians remains dramatically worse than that of the community as a whole. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has noted:

What data exists suggests that we have seen only slow improvements in some areas of health status and no progress on others over the past decade. The gains have been hard-fought. But they are too few. And the gains made are generally not of the same magnitude of the gains experienced by the non-Indigenous population, with the result that they have had a minimal impact on reducing the inequality gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians.

There are a number of disturbing trends which have entrenched health problems for Indigenous Australians including:

• high rates of infant mortality, and high rates of low birth weight among Indigenous babies

• continuing presence of third world diseases, including rheumatic fever, trachoma, and otitis media

• high rates of chronic diseases such as renal failure, cardio-vascular diseases and diabetes

• continued higher rates of poor health among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants, as well as far too common occurrence of otitis media (middle ear infection) and eye conditions such as trachoma, which can impact on educational attainment and employment

• a continuing tendency towards poor access to primary health care, as evidenced by high rates of sexually transmitted infections and relatively high rates of HIV/AIDS prevalence, and

• high rates of unhealthy and risky behaviour, including an increased prevalence of substance abuse and alcohol and tobacco use.

This continuing concern has led Commissioner Calma, OxFam and the Australian Medical Association, among others, to call for governments to commit to closing the 17-year gap between the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians and the rest of the community within the next twenty five years.

In the fortieth year since the passing of the 1967 Referendum, a Rudd Labor Government committed to closing the gap within a generation.

We supported this commitment with a $260 million downpayment on comprehensive Indigenous child and maternal health services.

As a result of this initiative, Indigenous women will have access to proper antenatal care (including a visit to a midwife or doctor, an ultrasound, and a general health check); practical advice on parenting, breastfeeding and nutrition for their babies; and
home visit services for new Indigenous mothers and children aged 0-8 years.

The Government will be investing $10 million to tackle rheumatic fever in Indigenous kids - a condition almost unknown outside the third world, and a further $10 million for accommodation services for Indigenous women if they're travelling from remote to urban and regional centres to have their babies.

The Government will ensure that all Indigenous children have access to health and early skills checks – hearing, sight, language – so that children are ready to learn.

We need a bipartisan national commitment to tackle the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within a generation.

In tackling that gap, we need to develop a sensible set of targets around intermediary program level outcomes, especially those that address those preventable chronic conditions that are responsible for so much of the burden of disease borne by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The social determinants of health – such as education, housing, employment – require action across portfolios and across different levels of government, so we need to make sure our coordination efforts are working effectively and efficiently.

While working on prevention and on the social determinants is vital, this does not mean we do not have to increase the effectiveness of the health system itself, especially primary health care services, and in particular those in the community-controlled sector. Initiatives to improve access, sustainability and quality will be high on my agenda as the new minister.

This focus on outcomes will mean that while the Rudd Labor Government is value-driven, we will not be ideologically-driven. Where things are working well, we will look to improve them. For example, we will be working closely with the Northern Territory Government and the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector there to ensure that the $183 million investment made by the previous government as part of its intervention, plus our own $20 million boost to health services in the NT, will be put to good use to improve access and quality of care.

We will also be looking to ensure that in Cape York the welfare reform initiatives underway there are underpinned by adequate health services and infrastructure.

The Rudd Labor Government is committed to advancing reconciliation, and taking practical steps to improve the social and economic wellbeing of Indigenous Australians.

This will require action on many fronts – but we know that investing in the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people is one of the best investments we can make in Australia's future.

A new CRCAH report has identified Indigenous tobacco use rates as the largest single risk factor responsible for the health discrepancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The Report provides details of the extent of premature mortality and disability estimated for over 170 disease and injury categories and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in remote and non-remote areas of Australia. It also presents estimates of the amount of disease and injury caused by 11 major risk factors.

More importantly, the Report measures the Indigenous Health Gap, which is the difference between the observed burden of disease in Indigenous Australians and what it would have been if the same rates of burden of disease as in the total Australian population would have applied.

The diseases and risk factors that contribute most to the Indigenous Health Gap are identified as health areas where appropriately resourced health services, combined with interventions to address the social and economic disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australians, are likely to have the greatest impact on reducing the burden of disease.  

In a stark message to the new Australian Government the Report shows that substantial health gain could be achieved if the 11 key risk factors facing Indigenous populations were ameliorated by proper, sustainable, health interventions.

The 11 key risk factors are (in the order of how much they contribute to the health gap) tobacco (17%), physical inactivity (16%), high cholesterol (7%), alcohol (7%), high blood pressure (6%), inadequate intake of fruit and vegetables (5%), illicit drugs (4%), IPV (3%), child sexual abuse (2%) and unsafe sex (2%). It should be noted that these estimates cannot be added together to get the total amount caused by all risk factors combined as these risk factors often act together on the same health outcomes.

The 11 risk factors cause high rates of non-communicable diseases, which explain 70% of the health gap between Indigenous Australians and the general Australian population. Cardiovascular disease at 23% is the leading contributor to the health gap in Indigenous Australians. Diabetes and mental disorders – at about 12% each – are the next two leading causes, with chronic respiratory diseases at 9% (Figure 1).

The total contribution of the 11 risk factors combined is estimated to be close to half of the health gap. It should also be noted that these estimates include the impact on health only and do not include the substantial non-health consequences of some of these risk factors, such as alcohol, intimate partner violence and child sexual abuse.

Figure: Indigenous health gap by selected causes

Copies of the Report, Policy Brief and Summary Report are available at: http://www.uq.edu.au/bodce/index.html?page=68411&pid=38659

For further information contact: Theo Vos – The University of Queensland Australia, Centre for Burden of Disease and Cost Effectiveness t.vos@sph.uq.edu.au

Professor Lowitja O'Donoghue is arguably Aboriginal Australia's Elder Stateswoman and the CRCAH is fortunate to have her as the organisation's Patron.

Professor O'Donoghue continues to provide leadership and insightful commentary on events in Indigenous policy and recently wrote a scathing critique of new Opposition leader Brendan Nelson's refusal to countenance an apology to members of the Stolen Generation and other Indigenous Australians who have suffered under government policy.

Gwalwa-Gai is pleased to reprint her critique which was first published in crikey.com……

I am saddened to hear that the new opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, will not say Sorry to Aboriginal people. But I am not surprised.

Brendan Nelson represents a party that is out of touch. They just don't get it. He would do well to talk to former Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, to learn something about genuine liberal values.

Nelson's are the mean-spirited responses of denial that diminish him as a person and diminish Australia as a nation. At the very historical moment when new, courageous collaboration is possible, this new Liberal leader, just like Howard before him, fuels the fires of division.

What they fail to grasp, or refuse to see, is that we cannot move forward until the legacies of the past are properly dealt with. This means acknowledging the truth of history, providing justice and allowing the process of healing to occur.

We are not just talking here of the brutality of a time gone by – though that was certainly a shameful reality. We are talking of the present, of the ways in which the legacy of the past lives on for every single Aboriginal person and their families.

It is time for non-Indigenous Australians to turn their reflective gaze inwards. It is time to look at non-Indigenous privilege – and to ask the question: ‘What was the cost of this advantage – and who paid the price?'

As part of its tobacco control program, the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control (CEITC) will next year undertake training sessions with Indigenous health workers in several locations around the country.

A training package has been developed that includes CEITC's popular Indigenous tobacco control resource kit, Talkin' Up Good Air, now in its third print run.

The kit has been sent to all Aboriginal medical services throughout Australia, free of charge, and is available for other health professionals working with Indigenous clients.

The kit is a practical manual full of helpful information, ideas, activities, success stories and reference material that encourages community action. It's aimed at health professionals, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers, to assist them in further developing and applying their tobacco control knowledge.

Smoke free super hero - Deadly Dan with young admirer at the CEITC stall at Shepparton's Croc Fest

Talkin' Up Good Air draws on the expertise of many individuals and organisations working in the area of tobacco control, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, community health and health promotion.

As part of the campaign to promote the kit, CEITC came up with the idea of Deadly Dan a Smoke-Free Superhero. A star attraction, hundreds of schoolkids visited the CEITC stall to pick up a Deadly Dan T-Shirt and tattoo.

An electronic version of the kit is also downloadable from the CEITC website: www.ceitc.org.au/

The CRCAH and CEITC are planning a research roundtable early next year to further develop a tobacco control research program.

To register your interest please contact: ceitc-info@unimelb.edu.au

CRCAH partner Melbourne University 's Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit and the Institute of Koorie Education Deakin University have been involved in a Public Health Education and Research Program (PHERP) funded project aimed at building Indigenous health capacity in the public health sector by:

• Increasing the number of Indigenous Master in Public Health graduates;
• Increasing the quality of Indigenous health curriculum in MPH programs;
• Development of a National Indigenous Public Health Curriculum Framework;
• Feasibility Study for the Development of a Nationally Accessible MPH (Indigenous Stream); and
• Establishing an Indigenous Public Health Network.

The development of an Indigenous Public Health Network was initially canvassed at the 2006 National Indigenous Public Health Curricula Workshop in Sydney which developed a draft set of guidelines for the establishment of a network.

The network will provide a forum for Indigenous public health academics and industry practitioners to guide Indigenous public health curriculum development, share teaching and learning innovations, exchange resources, initiate, develop and influence policy regarding Indigenous public health capacity development and ensure academic public health programs are of relevance to Indigenous public health practice.

Benefits of the network include:

• strengthening partnerships and linkages between the Indigenous primary health care sector and academic public health programs;
• building and enhancing the profile of Indigenous public health practitioners across the sector;
• promoting careers in Indigenous public health to Indigenous people;
• strengthening effective and innovative teaching and learning processes within public health teaching programs;
• developing a cohort of Indigenous academics within public health to enhance higher degree student supervision and examination; and
• enhancing the profile of Indigenous health within Australian Network of Academic Public Health Institutions (ANAPHI) and the academic public health sector.

The network is currently being convened by the PHERP Indigenous Public Health Capacity Building Project led by Professor Ian Anderson and Professor Wendy Brabham however it is anticipated that at the Population Health Congress in Brisbane next July a workshop will be organised to set the network's agenda and choose a convenor and caucus.

For more information contact Janice Jessen at Deakin University
Email: janice.jessen@deakin.edu.au
Phone: (03) 5227 2346

Dr Noel Hayman (back left) with other board members of the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association 2005/06

Dr Noel Hayman, of the Inala Community Health Centre, in SE Queensland , has won the inaugural ANTaR Queensland Close the Gap Indigenous Health Award in 2007.

ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) Qld has established its health awards as part of the Close the Gap campaign to recognise, each year, an organisation or individual who has successfully contributed to improving the health of Indigenous Australians.

Dr Noel, as he's universally known around the Inala community, is a descendant of the Wakka Wakka people on his grandfather's side and the Kalkadoon on his grandmother's side.

Dr Noel started at Inala as the Community Physician and Clinical Director in 1995, when he was one of the very few Indigenous doctors in Australia and the only Indigenous doctor looking after Aboriginal health in Inala.

Challenged by low Indigenous attendance at the centre Dr Noel talked with the Elders and consulted with the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community to get an understanding of the barriers to their attendance and also, importantly, what would encourage them to attend the centre.

A major problem, identified very quickly, was the lack of Aboriginal people employed at the centre, apart from Dr Noel. So funding was organised and an Aboriginal nurse was employed.

Noel recalls, ‘in our first year we had up near 900 Indigenous consultations Second year it was well over 1000. Last year it was over 10,000 Indigenous doctor consultations'.

The approach which Dr Noel and his team have taken has been hugely successful and Indigenous patients' access to these mainstream services is at a new high. Before the changes, Indigenous consultations made up less than 1% of consultations held at the centre. Today, 33% of consultations are Indigenous people from as far away as Woodridge.

“In our first year we had up near 900 Indigenous consultations, the second year it was well over 1000. Last year it was over 10,000 Indigenous doctor consultations”, said Dr Noel.

The CRC for Aboriginal Health has secured a health work placement for La Trobe University student Verity Nicholson at a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory for January/February next year.

Verity, a non-Indigenous undergraduate student from Victoria, will do a three-week placement in health promotion with the Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku (WDNWPT) in Kintore, 550 km west of Alice Springs.

The Kintore community, which has a population of 400, is putting together a kidney-failure preventative program.

Verity will be putting into practice some of the things she has learnt from her undergraduate subject Community Health Promotion. ‘I'll be working with the nurse in the local school helping to design health promotion interventions to help prevent kids from getting kidney failure in the future.'

The placement was initially organised through Penny Smith, who works as a research officer, at La Trobe's School of Public Health (Division of Health Studies). As the CRCAH link person for La Trobe University, Penny contacted CRCAH Communications Manager, Alastair Harris, in Darwin, after Verity expressed a willing interest in working in the Indigenous health area. Using the substantial CRCAH network Alastair put out feelers to the Aboriginal community across Australia and in a short time Verity was flooded with offers of placement work.

This is the second such placement Penny and Alastair have helped to organise in the past six months. Penny sees her role as ‘matching one jigsaw piece with another jigsaw piece, and we'll do more next year, as students are very keen to work in community health.'

Aboriginal communities are also keen to offer university students and others the opportunity to experience working with communities in the area of health. According to Verity, ‘definitely, Indigenous organisations want placement students'.

Clearly, this is a good outcome for everyone: the students, the university, the CRCAH, and the Kintore community and demonstrates the importance of strong relationships between the CRCAH, our partners and the wider Aboriginal community.

Meanwhile, WDNWPT has been getting people home to Kintore for dialysis and the Kintore people are very proud of raising their own money from paintings and working hard to get people back to country and family. They are also very aware that they need to work in their communities to reduce the incidence of kidney disease and to help people with failing kidneys to slow down the disease.

This year the committee and patients decided to organise a day out at Kintore to encourage people to think about kidney health and to celebrate the success of WDNWPT.

The theme was: keeping our spirit alive and strong. Screening activities were held at the clinic with the help of Baker Institute of Heart Research, three nursing students from Alice and Norway and Pintubi Homelands Health Service, and the Outreach Nurse from Alice Springs Renal Unit.

Youthworkers at Kintore organised activities for the kids, and nutritionists Sarah and Lauren were there with Vegeman and big mobs of fruit. Dialysis patients took visitors out to their country to look for bush tucker. A healthy community BBQ was held and concert was staged. DJ Climax from Sydney wowed the kids with a light show and his mixing techniques, John Henry Little came to represent his grandfather Jimmy Little and sang lots of old favourites and the evening was topped off by 80s rock and roll legends, The Angels.

It was quite a day!  Businesses in Alice donated prizes, the Salvos came to lend a hand and a busload of dialysis patients came out for a trip to join in the fun and catch up with family!

The WDNWPT committee is already planning activities for 2008: A kidney health roadshow, including bands, across the Western Desert is in planning and the committee is keen to hear from anyone who can help out.

WDNWPT is a registered charity. All donations are tax deductible, well used and gratefully accepted!

To find out more about WDNWPT please contact: Sarah Brown (08) 89530002 or email on wdnwpt@bigpond.net.au

80s rock legends The Angels perform with WDNWPT committee members at the recent Kintore kidney health day.

Carmen Cubillo is a PhD student at CRCAH partner Charles Darwin University who attended the recent Secretariat of National Aboriginal & Islander Child Care (SNAICC) national parenting conference with the assistance of CRCAH funding.

Carmen provided Gwalwa-Gai with this report…..

This year's, SNAICC parenting conference, titled Ngadluko Ngartunnaitya - For Our Children, was a huge success. I would like to thank CRCAH for the opportunity to attend such an event.

Throughout the conference there were strong themes of community, moving forward, solutions to long term problems, and advocacy for indigenous childhood issues. Even a tumultuous visit from former parliamentarian and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough did not shake the positive vibes from the 700 strong crowd.

Specific strategies were presented to tackle the multi-systemic problems faced by Indigenous families and their young children. Dr Chris Sarra, a leader in Indigenous education, described Stronger and Smarter, future realities for indigenous children.

While headmaster at Queensland 's Cherbourg primary school, he had a vision of delivering a program in schools that didn't interfere with welfare payments in the same way that other government-initiated school attendance programs do. Dr Sarra said Aboriginal people are being described as an “other”, and that the luxury of being “same” makes it easy to dispel the “other”. Abuse started to happen when it was okay to think of Aboriginal people as sub-human, and this still continues today.

Dr Sarra eloquently described the hopeless mindset perpetrated by the general community, and said that because of this mindset, Aboriginal children are bound to be under-achievers. The path to freedom is purging this mindset, replacing it with strong and smart. It is based on the principles of positive reinforcement of identity, being treated with respect and having positive role models. Being strong and smart means that a child can assess what's okay and not okay for them and be strong enough to tell someone.

Presenters communicated that organisations who run indigenous focussed programs found that having good working relationships with government departments is the key to their programs' success.

I would particularly like to acknowledge Chelsea Yarrie who gave an inspiring keynote address at the conference.  She showed that living a life of struggle does not make you a victim and that is a very powerful message. 

Informative booths were beautifully displayed with plenty of people to have a yarn with. Also enjoyable was the deadly music for the conference dinner and watching the deadly dancers!

There were many positive thoughts about the future, the most important was the message that Aboriginal culture is not being lost, but transforming, and it needs the support of conferences like these to share the information, not only with Indigenous people, but the non-Indigenous as well.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recently released a revised draft of the Australian alcohol guidelines for low-risk drinking and are seeking comment from a wide range of groups and individuals—including health professionals, community groups, professional and educational organisations, policy makers, the general public and those businesses responsible for providing alcohol.

According to Professor Warwick Anderson, NHMRC CEO, the revised guidelines are designed to give people an indication of the levels of alcohol consumption that are associated with an increased risk to health and social wellbeing.

“The aim is to minimise the risk of alcohol-related harm, such as accidents, injuries and disease,” said Professor Anderson. “The revised guidelines incorporate the most up-to-date evidence which includes an overarching guideline for adults, and two guidelines with special precautions for children and adolescents, and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.”

To view the revised guideline: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/consult/index.htm

CRCAH Chief executive Officer, Mick Gooda, was recently invited to judge the Indigenous category of the Bulletin magazine's Power 100 for 2007.

After much deliberation Mick chose Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma, for the number one spot.

"I had to consider my interpretation of power, such as positional power, power of the personality, power by association or power of influence," said Mick.

"I selected Tom Calma because he fits a few of these, but more important for me is how he uses his power. Tom is pragmatic in knowing that along with rights come responsibilities, but this mindset is not an imposition that applies only to one side. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have responsibilities as well as rights; so do governments and others," he said.

"Tom is as committed as anyone I know to the protection of children. This year I have particularly admired his actions in leading the fight to ensure indigenous people have access to the full rights enjoyed by other Australians.” Said Mick

Other Indigenous Australians who made Mick's list were:

Cape York Institute Director Noel Pearson, past ALP president Warren Mundine, Indigenous Education Leadership Institute Director Dr Chris Sarra, actor and musician Tom E Lewis, National Indigenous Council chair Dr Sue Gordon, tertiary educator Rose Kunoth-Monks, artist John Mawurndjul, footballer & educator David Wirrpanda and NT MP Barbara Malarndirri .

The Power 100 selects the 100 most powerful people in Australia. It is judged by a group of 10 who select people they consider share one common trait - the ability and desire to drive change.

http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=326792

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework (HPF) has been developed under the auspice of the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council (AHMAC). The HPF is designed to:

• measure the impact of the National Strategic Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (NSFATSIH) and inform policy analysis, planning and program implementation;
  
• provide the basis for streamlining reporting on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and health care delivery; and
  
• provide a focus for data development activities.

The HPF has approximately 70 measures in three groups:

• Health status and outcomes
  
• Determinants of health including socioeconomic and behavioural factors, and
  
• Health system performance.

The first report against the HPF was endorsed by the Australian Health Ministers' Conference in November 2006. A copy of the first report can be found: click here [pdf - 2MB]

The CRCAH recently hosted a research development roundtable in Canberra , in partnership with the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) to identify research priorities in the areas of Aboriginal prisoner health and recidivism.

More than 40 delegates from government, research, health, prisoner advocacy and community organisations shared ideas with each other in what is believed to be the first national forum of its kind. The dialogue which followed will inform development of a research agenda in prisoner health and recidivism to be progressed by the CRCAH and the other partner organisations.

Key Research Priorities from the meeting included:

• Establishing an evidence base on a range of programmatic interventions in the arrest, remand, sentencing, incarceration and release stages of the prisoner lifecycle.
• Examining the scope of prison health services and current models of service delivery in prisons, with a focus on continuity of care pre- and post-release.
• Exploring ways of addressing the challenge of delivering health services within different jurisdictions across the country, and how to best ensure coordination of service provision within jurisdictions.
• Identifying systematic mechanisms to support change.

Indigenous Australians continue to suffer far greater disadvantage relative to the non-Indigenous population across almost all significant social and economic indicators. The Productivity Commission's report Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage: key indicators 2005 found that many indicators relating to law and justice remain poor, including:

• Rising imprisonment rates for both men and women between 2000 and 2004.

• An increase in substantiated child protection notifications between 1999–2000 and 2003–04.

• An increase in victim of crime rates between 1994 and 2002.

CRCAH CEO Mick Gooda told Gwalwa-Gai that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are much more likely to be imprisoned and much more likely to be a victim of crime than other Australians.

Harry Williams (ACT Corrections) with Allan Benson (Native Counselling Services of Alberta) and Kerry Arabena (AIATSIS) at the prisoner health roundtable

“Our incarceration rates continue to rise with Indigenous women the fastest growing group in the prison population,” said Mr Gooda. “The tragedy is that many of our people in prison are themselves victims of violent crime and there is a desperate need to develop a program of research to address the appalling social and health costs of Indigenous incarceration.”

“In the twenty years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) reported on the disproportionate rates of Indigenous imprisonment in Australia and recommended action to reduce these rates our people continue to fill the country's prisons.”

In 1991, the Royal Commission made many recommendations which focused on improving justice outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. The RCIADIC report acknowledged that upstream social determinants have a significant impact on the disproportionately high levels of representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the prison system, and that this needed to be addressed as part of an overall strategy.

Current research available on Aboriginal prisoner health and recidivism is limited, and mainly focuses on descriptive research (how many prisoners etc) or clinical work around specific health issues (such as HIV). Very little research to date has examined the effectiveness of services within or outside prisons that aim to improve the holistic health of Aboriginal prisoners and reduce recidivism. There are a growing number of community organisations providing these services, but to date few have been comprehensively evaluated.

The CRCAH is committed to furthering the development of high quality research in the area of prisoner health and will regularly update our supporters through Gwalwa-Gai and the CRCAH website.

For more information: http://www.crcah.org.au/events/aboriginal_prisoner_health_industry_roundtable.html

Delegates at the recent CRCAH-hosted prisoner health roundtable in Canberra

Marius Puruntatameri (far right) with members of the Elders Visiting Program and visiting Canadians, Allen Benson and Patti LaBoucane-Benson, at Berrimah Prison

Tiwi Elder, Marius Puruntatameri has taken a leading role in a major initiative aiming to keep young Indigenous people out of jail.

Marius, a Community Fellow with SSPR, is one of a number of Aboriginal elders featured visiting young prisoners on the DVD documentary Inside – the Elders Visiting Program , which was recently launched by former Northern Territory Attorney-General, Syd Stirling.

Marius is passionate about improving outcomes for young Indigenous people and dedicated to giving them hope and direction by ensuring they receive a good education and supporting them to stay out of trouble with the law.

As well as being involved in the establishment of the NT Government's Elders Visiting Program, Marius is Chairperson of the Tiwi Education Board, playing an integral role in the development of a new secondary college due to open on Melville Island in 2008. He is also working with staff at SSPR to assist in the implementation of Accelerated Literacy in Tiwi Island schools, and contributing to important research on children and families.

The documentary features inmates and traditional elders sharing their stories. It is hoped that it will help young Indigenous people understand what time in prison does to the prisoner and their family, especially the important things they miss out on such as funerals, cultural ceremonies, and talking to their family.

For more information contact Charles Darwin University 's School of Social Policy Research: spr@cdu.edu.au

(Reprinted from Charles Darwin University 's School of Social Policy Research (SSPR) newsletter.)

Kalinda Griffiths was born in Darwin of Yawuru, Banjarese and Welsh heritage and currently works as a cadet within the services, systems and society division at the Menzies School of Health Research on the CIPHER (Capacity building in Indigenous Policy-relevant Health Research) program. With a scholarship through the National Indigenous Cadetship Program Kalinda is about to start her last semester of a bio-medical science degree streaming in public health at Charles Darwin University.

Like many other CRCAH trainees or scholarship holders it was Kalinda's own personal experiences that first moved her in the direction of a career in health research. “My interest in Indigenous health disparities has stemmed from the impact that my immediate and extended family have experienced due to unnecessary illness and disease,” she told Gwalwa-Gai.

Kalinda began her career in Indigenous health research with a CRCAH traineeship in laboratory techniques in 1998 and gained experience as a research technician predominantly on the DRUID (Diabetes and Related conditions in the Urban Indigenous Darwin region) study, where her work included design of laboratory protocols, sample collection and handling, training and data processing.

Kalinda says her goals include “working towards improving the health of Indigenous Australians though equity and equality.”

“I have recently become a member of the Menzies Indigenous ethics sub-committee and am looking forward to starting my Masters of Public Health in mid 2008,” she says.