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The health of Aboriginal children: The case for change and community control
Author(s) -
DEBELLE GEOFF
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of paediatrics and child health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.631
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1440-1754
pISSN - 1034-4810
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1754.1986.tb00173.x
Subject(s) - medicine , life expectancy , malnutrition , infant mortality , environmental health , population , pediatrics , gerontology , demography , sociology , pathology
The health of Aboriginal Australians remains poor despite improvements over the past decade. Aboriginal life expectancy is at least 20 years less than that of the Australian population overall. The wastage of fetal and infant life is three times that of non‐Aborigines. 1 Available data on Aboriginal childhood morbidity indicates a seemingly unchanging pattern of ill‐health; poor growth performance with widespread mild‐to‐moderate protein‐energy malnutrition 2 and high prevalance rates for infections of the upper and lower respiratory tract, 3,4 gastrointestinal tract, 5 eyes 6 and skin. 7 We may have reached a state of diminished returns where blind expenditure on health delivery will not secure any major improvements.