Finished school – better health for Indigenous Australians

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJun 8 2010

Dr Ananya Mandal, MD

A new report prepared by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has found that indigenous Australians who go on to complete their school education fare much better health wise than those who do not.

Also there is a considerable gap between the life expectancy of indigenous population compared to other Australians, the report said.

Delving into the school completion of these people it was noted in 2008 that those indigenous Australians who complete school are less likely to smoke or abuse drugs.

• Self assessed health showed that 60 percent of people who completed school felt they enjoyed good health compared to 49 percent of the school drop outs.
• 34 percent of year 12 completers smoked compared to 68 percent of the school drop outs.
• The indigenous population remains twice more likely to smoke than the non indigenous population, the report says.
• Continuous and risky alcoholic behavior has increased by 2 percent in 2008 from the 17 percent in 2002 among the indigenous Australians.
• 20 percent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians aged 15 years and over had used illicit substances in the last 12 months and 39 per cent had tried drugs at some point in their lifetime.
• 32 per cent of early school leavers had used drugs in the last 12 months compared with 23 per cent of those who had finished Year 12.

However on the brighter side at present 22 percent of this population completes year 12 of their studies, 4 percent up from 2008. Smoking rates have also dropped from 49 percent in 2002 to 45 percent in 2008 and this is the first downward trend since 1994.

The report says, “The likelihood of engaging in certain health risk behaviors also decreased with higher levels of schooling.” The ABS feels that there is no causal link between education and health. The body feels that better maternal and child care could be responsible for these findings.

• In 2008, nearly 90 per cent of indigenous mothers with children under three-years-old had regular check-ups during their pregnancies
• 76 per cent of those children had been breastfed.
• Population living in regional and metropolitan areas stopped breastfeeding at a median age of 17 weeks, short of the 24 weeks recommended by the World Health Organization, while those in remote areas continued for 36 weeks on average.
• 80 per cent of indigenous children reported as being in excellent or very good health in 2008.
• Physical activity was seen in 84 percent of children between the age of four and 14 in remote areas while other areas had on 74 percent physically active children.

Passive smoking among children living in homes where adults smoked dropped from 29 per cent in 2004-05 to 21 per cent in 2008.