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Chris Valerie Brennan-Jones Swift PhD Head, Ear and Hearing Health Aboriginal Co-Director, Djaalinj Waakinj Centre for Ear and Hearing Health;
Pelvic health conditions among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and men are under-recognised and under-reported despite indication of the significant burden of these conditions. Access to effective management provided in a culturally safe manner appears lacking.
In partnership with local Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, the Elder-led co-designed Koolungar Moorditj Healthy Skin project is guided by principles of reciprocity, capacity building, respect, and community involvement. Through this work, the team of Elders, community members, clinicians and research staff have gained insight into the skin health needs of urban-living Aboriginal koolungar (children); and having identified a lack of targeted and culturally appropriate health literacy and health promotion resources on moorditj (strong) skin, prioritised development of community-created healthy skin resources.
This research sought to provide an outline of identified household-level environmental health initiatives to reduce or interrupt Strep A transmission along each of these pathways.
We are working with the leadership and staff at foster care agencies and community members to provide information about cultural connection, and cultural activity and resources for Aboriginal children living in non-Aboriginal care arrangements.
Delivering cancer control at scale for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is a national priority that requires Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and codesign, as well as significant involvement of the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector. The unique genomic variation observed among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples may have implications for standard and precision medicine.
Healing Right Way (HRW) aimed to improve health outcomes for Aboriginal Australians with stroke or traumatic brain injury by facilitating system-level access to culturally secure rehabilitation services. Using a stepped-wedge randomised controlled trial design, a two-pronged intervention was introduced in four rural and four urban hospitals, comprising cultural security training for staff and training/employment of Aboriginal Brain Injury Coordinators to support Aboriginal patients for 6-months post-injury.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are disproportionately impacted by type 2 diabetes. Continuous glucose monitoring technology (such as Abbott Freestyle Libre 2, previously referred to as Flash Glucose Monitoring) offers real-time glucose monitoring that is convenient and easy to use compared to self-monitoring of blood glucose.
Diabetic nephropathy, vision loss and diabetic retinopathy are frequent comorbidities among individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The Retinopathy in People Currently On Renal Dialysis study sought to examine the epidemiology and risk of vision impairment and among a cohort of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians with T2D currently receiving haemodialysis for end-stage renal failure.
Organ transplantation is a well-established intervention but is reliant on the donation of organs and tissues, mostly from deceased donors. The proportion of Australians proceeding to organ donation (OD) has increased, but the proportion of Indigenous Australians proceeding remains two-thirds that of non-Indigenous Australians. We sought to explore perceived barriers and enablers for the involvement of Indigenous peoples in the OD process.