Doctors Reform Society of Australia
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by David Paul and David Atkinson

For the past 30 years or so there has been a steady increase in the literature on Aboriginal health, with a marked increase over recent years. Despite this increased attention in terms of research publications the actual health of Aboriginal peoples has, overall, not improved significantly. Certainly the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians’ health has not diminished and indeed, it has increased recently for Aboriginal women (AIHW, 1996). This is quite different from the circumstances of the original occupiers of the United States, Canada and Aotearoa where there has been a significant improvement in the health of Indigenous peoples such that there is now a much smaller relative difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health in those countries.

For Aboriginal people one of the central issues in health research and reporting on Aboriginal health over the last two decades has been the lack of Aboriginal input to the research agenda and the limited amount of true community involvement in the process of finding solutions to Aboriginal health problems. Methods to address these concerns were outlined in the recommendations from the ‘Workshop on Priorities to Improve Aboriginal Health’ funded by the NHMRC in Alice Springs in 1986 (NHMRC 1991). This workshop recommended, among many other things, that there should be Aboriginal control of the allocation of research funds for Aboriginal health, that Aboriginal communities be involved ‘in every step of research design and execution’, that skills transfer to Aboriginal people must occur during research projects and that research with Aboriginal communities be given priority over individual research. Interim NHMRC Guidelines concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research which address many of these recommendations were formulated in 1987, included in the National Aboriginal Health Strategy (AHSWP 1989) and produced in an interim format, pending publication, by the NHMRC in 1991. These Guidelines covered consultation, community involvement, and ownership and publication of data.

The full text of this article is not currently available online. Contact Carol at the DRS national office for more information.

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			This page was last updated on 10th February, 2003.
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