Indigenous Mental Health
Word count 1535
Assessment 1
Indigenous Mental Health
Health and wellbeing is a vital part of anyone's life. The relationship of an individual with their family members, community, society and the nation along with spiritual and physical wellness leads to achieve good physical, social and mental health (Toombs & Gorman 2011). In context of indigenous health in Australia, different research shows a higher rate of health conditions and their impact in the community which may be directly affected by different factors such as living styles, unemployment, disability, access to the services, education and available resources (Calma & Dudgeon 2013). This essay is about the identification of the past and present situation on health condition of aboriginal people and to know how the different social determinants of health factor affects in the health status of the community.
According to Calma & Dudgeon (2013), the physical and mental health of indigenous Australian's is related to social and emotional wellbeing where there are positive relations with the family and society, respect for culture, tradition and values. This can minimize the risk against the numbers of conditions like sickness, poverty, unemployment and disability. On the other hand, 80% of indigenous Australians are experiencing stress and mental problems than other non indigenous population due to poor access of education, health services, employment, food, social support and so on (Osborne 2013).
Social determinants of health are the influencing factors that affects positively or negatively in the health of society or community. The concept of prevention is better than cure is highly acceptable to prevent any physical, emotional, social misbalance and also to improve the health condition of the people. Apart from that, improvements on the social factors like poverty, education, racism, substance misuse help to achieve better physical, social and emotional health (Wilkinson & Marmot 2003).
Indigenous people's health is highly affected by poverty. People cannot meet the needs of life due to poor socio economic condition and has to pass through financial crisis which may lead to cause drug and alcohol use, unbalanced nourishment, poor family relations including domestic violence as one cannot access to healthy food, housing, sanitation and appropriate health services due to poor economic condition. Financial stress was found to be over two times higher in indigenous people than in non-Indigenous people. There is also a financial exclusion as a contributing factor to financial stress as indigenous people have limited financial literacy, cultural differences and commercial experiences. Hence, poverty leads towards poor physical, social and mental health including different health problems in the individual's life (Loban 2011).
Education is the key factor which enhances the quality of living. Most of the indigenous people around remote and rural areas can't ...
