HST1111 - Population Health Essay or Assessment Solution

Health services in Australia are especially focused on reaching out to various communities to ensure the health and well-being of their children. Both the aborigine as well as the non-aborigine children has been recognized as the potential wealth of the nation. They are the future on which the entire continent depends.

Health has been defined by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1990) as the state of social emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual and cultural well-being. It is not taken to be merely the absence of disease and infirmity. It is within these parameters of health that the Australia health care systems approach has been functioning.

Comparing health of Indigenous and non-indigenous Children

Among both indigenous and non-indigenous children the health status indicators were almost always all positively inclined towards the non-aborigine children? These health indicators were related in direct proportion to the educational and health levels of the care givers. The aborigine care givers’ inherent worries, stress levels, emotional difficulties are all transported into the psyche and well-being of the aborigine children (Browne et al, 2014).

These children have been observed to be having difficulties that were on the emotional or behavioral levels. However, these were seen to have significant clinical implications for the health functionaries responsible for giving appropriate interventions. Further investigations should that some of the main indicators of ill health observed among the aborigine children were because of their environment and life circumstances. One of them was the fact that almost all aborigine children had experienced the fatal loss of a parent in early childhood itself. They were barely able to adjust to the stressful situation when they had to encounter prolonged disease in the family either among the parental or grand parental generations. The long term exposure to stressful situations has been recorded to influence the state of health of 70% of the indigenous children. These situations of stress can be detailed as:

• A death in the family, especially of a loved grandparent, loved parent or close sibling.
• Recurrence of prolonged illness afflicting somebody close to the child. Either a parent or a beloved sibling (Biddle, 2013).
• Poverty and constant financial constraints which may be due to loss of job, inability to work or even the inability to find profitable livelihood.
• Breakdown of the family life due to domestic violence, incompatibility and various other socio-psychological (Biddle, 2013).

Debt and inability to repay back their loans police record, arrests and falling foul of the law due to various reasons are among some of the prime reasons for creating stressful living for the family (Wilson, 2014). Records show that mental or behaviors disorders are rooted in or are being manifested hospitalization are virtually on the increase. In the past half a decade age there have been over sixteen thousand hospitalizations of aborigine children. These were generally cases where the patient reported being under stressful, severe mental and behavioral stress (Taylor & Biddle, 2008).

The severity of these symptoms can be accessed from the fact that there were also more than three hundred deaths due to these very symptoms which proved fetal. From early childhood the aborigine children have been exposed to a number of factors that undermine their health behavior patterns and treatment therapy adoption.

Current Health Scenario

The well-organized health delivery system operates or three different levels:-

1. The Primary care level of health care
2. The Secondary Care level of health care and
3. The Tertiary care

The Primary care systems abound in community based programs that are conducted on the basis of highly specialized area and population specific intervention. These people-oriented interventions are specific to age groups, disease, gender and most especially children.

The treatment of the aborigine children is administrated along lines of their cultural understanding of the state of ill-health. How the treatment seeker perceives disease and ill-health as well as how the care gives seeks to impart the curtain therapies is a common ground that comes from a thorough understanding of their cultural backdrop (Gracey, & King, 2009).

The secondary and tertiary levels of care are more institution based than primary care. The tertiary care is more tuned into specific diseases and status of ill-health among children. There are several childhood specific health conditions that need to be focused upon. Among the non-aborigine population also there are programs that aim at ensuring periodic check-ups, immunization sessions follow-ups, disease control and disease prevention. Among non-aborigine children oriented health care programs, however, the onus of responsibility lies with the parents of these children as well. They have a major share of maintaining records and carrying out follow-ups.

Three Tier Reporting Formats

The information management systems of the health care personnel for both the aborigine as well as the non-aborigine children are similar. The only difference is in the recording of the detailed ethnic background and cultural roots of the aborigine children. These specifics are necessary to ensure the line of treatment to be accorded to particular population. Many of the reporting formats are the basis for planning of interventions from the grassroots level upwards (Vos, et al, 2009).

The second level of information management and reporting is conducted at the primary school level. All primary school goers are assessed for having attained the requisite health parameters, immunization, supplements and monitoring of nutritional as well as health status. This dual form of assessment ensures that the aborigine and non-aborigine children both obtain the optimum health care benefits being provided at the governmental level.

Conclusion

The Australia health care authorities are well aware of the implications of a well-managed health care delivery system. They are concerned about the health status of their future human capital, the children of Australia today. The focus of the health systems is to ensure a disease free healthy population living in a state of mental, physical and social well-being. The interventions planned for the children are focused differently for the aboriginal and non-aboriginal children. They are more culture and technology sensitive for the aborigine children. The health care delivery system acknowledges the fact that some part of the aborigine culture is carried in every member of the community. It also knows that to come out of it totally could prove fatal. This is the reason for special care being taken at every step.