What research or surveillance systems do we need to change policies and practice ? Dr Heather...
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What research or surveillance systems do we need to change policies and practice ? Dr Heather Gifford Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development
What research or surveillance systems do we need to change
policies and practice ? Dr Heather Gifford Whakauae Research for
Mori Health and Development Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Pre-congress Workshop Adelaide Sept 2012
Slide 2
Who is doing the surveilling? Who is being surveilled? What is
surveillance data being used for?
Slide 3
Questions being asked are of interest to the Government and
defined by the Government and may not necessarily be the questions
that are interesting or relevant for indigenous people themselves;
said another way the agenda and control for what information is
collected remains largely in the hands of the Government.
Slide 4
Statistical indicators with which progress in closing the gap
will be measured represent Indigenous Australia not as a society,
but as a population comprised of individuals, that may be grouped
in geographically bounded communities for the purposes of analysis
or interventions. Such a framework does not account for the
dynamics within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies, or
of the structural conditions and relationships between Indigenous
and non-Indigenous Australia. Kerryn Pholi 2009.
Slide 5
If we dispense with that definition of Aboriginal people and
treat Aboriginal people as First Peoples - that is our status
derives from us being here before settlement - not on the basis of
race but an historical argument, then Aboriginal people become
citizens with an attribute that is political, not racial. Professor
Marcia Langton, Melbourne Writers Festival, 2012.
Slide 6
Source: Hill S, Sarfati D, Blakely T, et al. Ethnicity and
management of colon cancer in New Zealand. Cancer
2010;116(13):3205-14. of colon cancer in New Zealand. Cancer
2010;116(13):3205-14. Step 2: What are the causes of these trends
and inequalities? Incidence (e.g. tobacco, alcohol) and survival
(e.g. comorbidity, health services) Example: Receipt of treatment
for colon stage III cancer by ethnicity.
Slide 7
such reductionism and essentialism of Indigenous identity
requires Indigenous people to either conform to the prevailing
depiction of Indigenous statusto be sick, poor, under- educated,
marginalised and oppressedor cease to exist as an authentically
Indigenous person. Yin Paradies 2006
Slide 8
This is an example of the wishful thinking around the power of
statistics that seems to be at work in Indigenous policy circles in
Australia: that improved and increased data will magically
translate into improved and increased health and wellbeing for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In the absence of a
nationally representative Indigenous body, best positioned to
provide the link between data, theory and policy development, such
a translation may indeed have to be magical. Kerryn Pholi
2009.
Slide 9
Government Response to the Report of the Mori Affairs Committee
on its Inquiry into the tobacco industry in Aotearoa and the
consequences of tobacco use for Mori The long term goal of making
New Zealand "essentially a smokefree nation by 2025"