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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander urban location and health project

Submitted by Admin on 12 April 2010 - 1:55am

CRCAH Project No: SD142

Administering organisation:
 Flinders University

Project Leader:
 Gilbert Gallaher

Contact Details:

Fran Baum
fran.baum@flinders.edu.au
(08) 7221 8410

Anna Ziersch
anna.ziersch@flinders.edu.au
(08) 7221 8484

Team Members:
 Fran Baum, Anna Ziersch, Catherine Palmer, Wendy Edmondson, Michael Bentley, Laura Winslow, Michelle Ah Matt

Program Manager:
Scott Davis
Social Determinants of Health

Funding Sources:

  • National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

Partners Involved:

  • Flinders University

This project is endorsed as an in-kind project of the CRCAH.

Project Summary:

This project seeks to explore how urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people feel about where they live and whether they think their neighbourhood and social networks influence their health and if so, in what ways. The project was conducted in different urban locations across Adelaide and aimed to inform the development of appropriate and culturally safe policies to promote healthy neighbourhoods for Indigenous communities.

Summary of Outcomes:

The project’s primary objectives were to:

  • Improve knowledge of the underlying social and economic determinants of health for urban-based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  • Foster better understanding of the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in suburban Australia, especially in regard to experiences of racism and the ways in which these experiences affect health.
  • Provide knowledge to improve the quality and content of policies and programs that seek to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.
  • Develop the skills, knowledge and competence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers.

Preliminary findings suggest that urban Indigenous people are active participants in community groups and have strong connections to family and friends, particularly other Indigenous people. They are keen to have a positive neighbourhood environment and are well integrated in their local communities. However, levels of trust in institutions and people in Australia were substantially lower among participants when compared with non-Indigenous people in a companion study. It is likely that lower levels of trust reported in this study are strongly related to the high level of racism reported by people, with 93 per cent of participants experiencing racism at least sometimes and two-thirds reporting experiencing it often.

Summary of Project Implementation:

This project was conducted by a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers in Adelaide, and involved interviews with a broad spectrum of Indigenous people living in urban postcodes in and around the Port Adelaide, Burnside, Prospect, Playford and Onkaparinga areas. Interviews involved a range of questions including where people live, the sorts of activities people are involved with, the kinds of services people use and what people like and don't like about their neighbourhood. There were also some general questions about peoples’ views on health and their experiences of racism/discrimination. All responses were tape recorded and transcribed, after which the tapes were destroyed. Comparisons were made with a larger companion study done in Adelaide, the General Location and Health Project, as well as two telephone surveys of urban South Australians conducted in 2003 and 2005. Research findings were discussed at two policy workshops held in April 2008 with discussions being incorporated into the draft research report.

Timeline:
The project ran from 2005 to 2008, with interviews held from April 2006 to January 2007and a final research report released in 2009 (see below link).

Related links:

Created 12 Apr 2010, updated 09 Dec 2010