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Therapeutic drug safety for Indigenous Australians: how do we close the gap?
Author(s) -
Thynne Tilenka,
Gabb Genevieve M
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/mja15.00937
Subject(s) - indigenous , citation , library science , north west , medicine , geography , computer science , ecology , biology , physical geography
doi: 10.5694/mja15.00937 Iwith the general Australian population. Cardiovascular disease accounts for a large proportion of this burden, with high prevalence of type 2 diabetes and chronic renal failure being underlying risk factors. Traditional cardiovascular risk calculators underestimate risk in Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. For example, observed numbers of coronary events for Indigenous Australians who live in remote areas are 2.5 times higher than predicted using the Framingham risk calculator, and younger women in this population have 30 times the predicted rate of events. While this suggests that solely focusing on management of traditional risk factors may not be the complete answer, this high burden of disease in the Indigenous population can drive recommendations for earlyandextensiveuseofmedicines.