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Indigenous children and young peoples live with an inequitable burden of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. In this Review, we focus on the epidemiological burden and lived experience of these conditions for Indigenous young peoples in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. We outline the direct and indirect drivers of rheumatic heart disease risk and their mitigation.
Mainstream Australian mental health services are failing Aboriginal young people. Despite investing resources, improvements in well-being have not materialised. Culturally and age appropriate ways of working are needed to improve service access and responsiveness. This Aboriginal-led study brings Aboriginal Elders, young people and youth mental health service staff together to build relationships to co-design service models and evaluation tools.
We explore the acceptability of a novel, outreached-based approach to improve primary and primordial prevention of Strep A skin sores, sore throats and acute rheumatic fever in remote Aboriginal communities. A comprehensive prevention program delivered by trained Aboriginal Community Workers was evaluated using approximately fortnightly household surveys about health and housing and clinical records.
Vitamin D deficiency (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration <50 nmol/l) is recognised as a public health problem globally. The present study details the prevalence and predictors of vitamin D deficiency in a nationally representative sample (n 3250) of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults aged ≥18 years. We used data from the 2012-2013 Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (AATSIHS). Serum 25(OH)D concentrations were measured by liquid chromatography-tandem MS.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a preventable, lifelong disability that disproportionately affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of the available information on FASD among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with reference to the limitations on population-based data and evaluated programs.
Anticipation and prompt relief of symptoms among patients with a life-limiting illness is a core element of palliative care. Indigenous Australians commonly encounter cultural barriers in healthcare that may impair outcomes. The Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration collects patient care data for the purposes of continuous quality improvement and benchmarking, with each recorded care episode divided into phases that reflect a patient's condition.
The majority of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter referred to as “Aboriginal”) people live in urban centres. Otitis media (OM) occurs at a younger age, prevalence is higher and hearing loss and other serious complications are more common in Aboriginal than non-Aboriginal children. Despite this, data on the burden of OM and hearing loss in urban Aboriginal children are limited.
The health disadvantages faced by Australian Aboriginal peoples are evidenced in early life, although few studies have focused on the reasons for population-level inequalities in more severe adverse outcomes. This study aimed to examine the scale of disparity in severe neonatal morbidity (SNM) and mortality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal births and quantify the relative contributions of important maternal and infant factors.
Prevalence of impetigo (skin sores) remains high in remote Australian Aboriginal communities, Fiji, and other areas of socio-economic disadvantage. Skin sore infections, driven primarily in these settings by Group A Streptococcus (GAS) contribute substantially to the disease burden in these areas. Despite this, estimates for the force of infection, infectious period and basic reproductive ratio-all necessary for the construction of dynamic transmission models-have not been obtained.
Households are known to be high-risk locations for the transmission of communicable diseases. Numerous modelling studies have demonstrated the important role of households in sustaining both communicable diseases outbreaks and endemic transmission, and as the focus for control efforts. However, these studies typically assume that households are associated with a single dwelling and have static membership.