The Wire

How does racism impact on the health of indigenous Australians? That’s one of the issues up for discussion today at a conference in Darwin being held for health practitioners and public servants. The meeting is being run jointly by the Cooperative Research Center for Indigenous Health or CRC, Charles Darwin University and the Menzies School of Health Research. Indigenous people in Australia face poorer health outcomes across a range of areas and are likely to die twenty years younger than their non-Indigenous counterparts. However, according to Mick Gooda, the CEO of CRC, by looking at the bigger picture of indigenous health and by focusing on issues that fall outside traditional areas of concern to health, solutions can be found. According to Mr Gooda, people need to look to what he termed the “social determinants” behind health. He explained further to Erica Vowles.