Impact of Social, Historical, and Political Processes on the Health of Indigenous People
For a long time, the indigenous people of Australia have been facing multiple issues that negatively affect their lives. Of the multiple issues, health disparities tend to affect them the most. Several efforts by the Australian authority and other organs have not been successful in restoring the indigenous communities to the high-level health that they need. Various studies tend to settle on the aspects of historical, social, as well as the political process as the reasons for the unending health issues encountered by the indigenous communities. In presenting these findings, this work presents a literature review of various research sources done on the mentioned aspects and how they have affected the wellbeing of the indigenous groups in Australia.
Social Processes
One of the social issues that tend to affect the healthy wellbeing of the indigenous people in Australia is the issue of overcrowding. One of the factors that tend to have resulted in overcrowding in most of the areas associated with indigenous communities is the issue of lands that they ended up losing to the settlers and other non-indigenous communities that encroached the region that belonged to them. In the end, most of the indigenous people ended up losing their vast fertile land to the non-indigenous settlers, thus ending up living in overcrowded areas, an aspect that often has adverse impacts on their health as a community. In affirming this aspect, Waterworth et al., (2015) engaged in a study that affirms that the issue of overcrowding tend to result in poor shelter, water, and other vital resources that ends up putting the lives of the indigenous communities at stake. Additionally, the high levels of mingling between the indigenous people and the non-indigenous communities tend to negatively affect the psychological wellbeing of the aboriginals in Australia. Waterworth et al., (2015) through the study showed that having to associate with the non-aboriginal people tend to have psychological issues on the former, as the non-indigenous groups tend to view the way of living of the indigenous people as primitive. This aspect, in turn affects the self-esteem of the indigenous communities that ends up struggling with psychological-related health issues.
Another social issue that tends to play a significant role in shaping the healthy wellbeing of the indigenous people in Australia is racism. Racism is often described in terms of people being described, viewed, as well as treated in terms of their skin color. In most cases, racism plays a significant role in determining the kind of healthy attention that the indigenous people attain, compared to other non-indigenous communities. Additionally, the unfair treatments that the aboriginals continue battling in the hands of the non-indigenous tend to have long-lasting adverse impacts on the indigenous psychological wellbeing. Dudgeon, Wright, Paradies, Garvey, & Walker (2010) engaged in a study that exhibited how racism tends to affect the health life of the indigenous people. In this case, racism tend to develop the cumulative aspect of us versus them, which, in most cases, results in the non-indigenous communities having to take care of ‘their own,’ which, in turn results in health disparities for the indigenous people. Another aspect of health that tends to be negatively affected by racism exhibited on the local people is the psychology. According to Dudgeon, Wright, Paradies, Garvey, & Walker (2010), racism tend to result in indigenous communities having to face challenges on how to try and cope with the daily oppression they face from the non-indigenous communities. In the end, the victims often plunge into psychological challenges, which, in turn negatively impacts their health. Thus, without a doubt, racism is a form of social process in Australia which tends to result in multiple health disparities for the indigenous communities in the country.
Consequently, Cooper (2011) affirms that social issues such as racism, discrimination and other social exclusion challenges faced by individuals from aboriginal communities tend to have adverse impacts on their health wellbeing. According to the study, multiple social exclusions such a racism tend to result in issues of stress, loss of self control, low self-esteem, as well as anxiety. These issues, in turn, lead to poor mental and psychological health results in the indigenous victims. As the issue of racism continues taking root in the Australian community against the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in the society, the community continues facing more psychological and mental health issues. For example, Cooper (2011) in a study undertaken to determine the prevalence of racism against the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities, about 93 percent of the participants from this group revealed that they were victims if racism. This finding shows that more aboriginal and Torres Islander communities continue struggling with the issue of racism, which, in turn, adversely affects their health wellbeing.
Historical Processes
In most cases, the wellbeing of an individual tends to go hand in hand with the wellbeing of the community. In most cases, when the community faces various adversities, it goes all way to negatively impact the wellbeing of the individuals. To the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities, the adverse events they faced in the hands of the colonialists adversely impacted the members’ health up to the present time. In the past, the indigenous people used to live a healthy life, characterized by quality climatic conditions, nature, sense of belonging, and other aspects that boosted the people’s psychological wellbeing. However, the coming of colonizers resulted in new challenges that ended up having negative impacts on the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities, up to the contemporary time. According to Van Holst Pellekaan, & Clague (2005), the coming of colonizers resulted in the changing of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities’ lifestyle. Many families were dispossession from their indigenous country, leading to change of lifestyle, language, cultural identity, as well as the issue of families ending up in disintegration. The separation of families form their loved ones into new regions resulted in high levels of anxiety, as well as depression, which resulted in increased levels of psychological healthy complications in the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities.
Additionally, Waterworth, Pescud, Braham, Dimmock & Rosenberg, (2015) identifies that at the time when colonization was taking root in Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities were restricted from taking part in various practices. For example, the communities abhorred from teaching their lineages about the indigenous culture, communicating in the indigenous culture, as well as teaching the traditions about the community history and other ways of life. The change in historic way of life for the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities resulted in high level of denial that lead to many people being psychologically unsettled.
In effort to suggest the solutions for restoring the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities, Axelsson, Kukutai, & Kippen (2016) came up with a number of methods that they believed would remove the historical atrocities planted by the white settlers on the indigenous people. The authors believe that the abolition of the historical atrocities will restore the mental health as well as behavior of the indigenous people in Australia. One of the outline suggestions include the returning to the historically grabbed land to the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities. Another one was curbing the historical issues of health inequities often directed to the indigenous people. The last one was the abolition of top-down international policies to enable the local people have voice on ways of running their lives. With such changes, the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities will start experiencing better health as they will be psychologically satisfied. Thus, without a doubt, historical atrocities have had adverse impacts on the healthy wellbeing of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities.
Political Processes
Political processes seem to have had adverse impacts on the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities’ health status in Australia. A study by Dobe (2015) argues that when the British went and colonized the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities, they employed the paternalistic ideology, a method still used by the contemporary government on the Australians. The primary characteristic of the paternalistic policy is that it holds excessive restrictions on the individuals’ behaviors such as consumption of alcohol, gambling, and other activities that people engage in, on daily basis to keep themselves happy. Although this policy tends to affect all the Australians, it appears to have had adverse impacts on members of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities. Reports show that only 39 percent of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities hold employment positions, compared to the 55 percent of the non-indigenous ones. Most of the tough policies enacted to stop the normal way of life of the indigenous people tend to have affected them psychologically, making them to register higher health issues than their non-indigenous counterparts. Thus, political processes have had adverse impacts on the health of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities in Australia.
Summarily, the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities in Australia tend to face many health issues compared to their non-indigenous counterparts. Many efforts to restore the situation and enable the indigenous communities to start living a healthy life have not been successful. Multiple sources reveal that the health challenges facing the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities are due to the social, historical, as well as political processes that tend to affect the community since the colonization period. This work is a literature review of multiple sources that affirms that the elements of social, historical, and political activities have had adverse impacts on the indigenous health.
References
Axelsson, P., Kukutai, T., & Kippen, R. (2016). The field of Indigenous health and the role of
colonisation and history. Journal of Population Research, 33(1), 1-7.
Cooper, D. (2011). Closing the gap in cultural understanding: social determinants of health in
Indigenous policy in Australia. Darwin, Australia: Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance of the Northern Territory (AMSANT).
Dobe, M. (2015). WFPHA: World Federation of Public Health Associations. Journal of public
health policy, 36(4), 502-513.
Dudgeon, P., Wright, M., Paradies, Y., Garvey, D., & Walker, I. (2010). The social, cultural and
historical context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice, 25-42.
Van Holst Pellekaan, S. M., & Clague, L. (2005). Toward health and wellbeing for indigenous
Australians. Postgraduate medical journal, 81(960), 618-624.
Waterworth, P., Pescud, M., Braham, R., Dimmock, J., & Rosenberg, M. (2015). Factors
influencing the health behaviour of indigenous Australians: Perspectives from support people. PloS one, 10(11), e0142323.