Case Studies
Partnering with indigenous communities for health and wellbeing
Research conducted within the Metro South Health region is partnering with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in projects that aim to improve health and wellbeing in areas such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, drug and alcohol use, child health, incontinence, mental health and smoking.
The Southern Queensland Centre of Excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Primary Health Care (SQCoE) is a Metro South Health primary healthcare facility based in Inala. The service offers GP and nursing care, as well as allied health, mental health, child health, outreach, and visiting specialist services. Most staff identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. The SQCoE also has its own dedicated Research and Education team which supports 31 current research projects.
Key points
- The Southern Queensland Centre of Excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Primary Healthcare works with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community on projects that aim to improve health and wellbeing of mob.
- 31 current research projects cover areas such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, drug and alcohol use, child and youth health, incontinence, mental health, cancer and smoking. All projects use strengths-based, Indigenist methodologies that impact health service delivery and health/wellbeing.
- The Inala Community Jury for Health Research is a 100% Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee that provides local, cultural governance and oversees the projects, ensuring they are ethically sound, culturally appropriate, relevant and beneficial for the community.
- Research is future-focused, with proposals targeting the health and research priorities of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Oversight from people with lived experience and cultural knowledge
The SQCoE has more than 3700 active Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients and provided 38,000 occasions of service in 2022-23 across medical, nursing, allied health and community care.
The service also conducts research, with a team of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers, and non-Indigenous researchers who work collaboratively with health service and university partners across the country. All SQCoE research is conducted with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership, and seeks to build health research capacity in the Community.
Community representatives form the Inala Community Jury for Health Research, together deciding how business is conducted, hearing proposals from researchers, and interrogating study methods, resources and impacts on the community and health service. The Inala Community Jury representatives bring a diverse array of lived experience and cultural knowledge to their review of research proposals.
Among the research studies currently underway are:
Developing, implementing, and evaluating a co-created health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in primary care
Aboriginal researchers Professor Noel Hayman, Claudette ‘Sissy’ Tyson, and Michelle Combo, in collaboration with Dr Geoff Spurling, are leading this qualitative program of work to understand what health issues are important for young people in the Inala community.
The answers will help to co-create a new health check which meets the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, aged 12-25 years. The project will then evaluate the new health check and implement it into the SQCoE primary health care service.
“This research project came about after the huge impact of attending the funeral of Mikira Tyson, who is the daughter of my work mate. This really hit close to home and made me realise that we need to do as much as possible to stop the effects of suicide. So doing this project is a start….. To stop, yarn, listen to what the young ones need to improve their social emotional wellbeing.” Dr Geoff Spurling.
Decolonising practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care
Unlike mainstream colonial approaches to health, which can cause harm, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care services understand and consider the social and cultural determinants of health when delivering care. The social and cultural determinants include the emotional, physical, environmental, spiritual, social and cultural aspects of a person’s health and wellbeing. Decolonising health care practice requires health care providers to work in ways that eliminate colonial health approaches to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can thrive.
This project is seeking to understand how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care services works to decolonise care, across a number of services nationwide. This work is led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers and non-Indigenous researchers from the University of Adelaide.
“…the fact that with the transgenerational trauma that occurred with our people, our people were very frightened to come in to health services. And that’s the whole reason why setting up an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health service was so that you’d have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff in there where our people would feel safe and go to the doctors.” Participant in a community workshop, Inala.
Safeguarding against dementia in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities through optimisation of primary health care
Among Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, dementia prevalence is higher than in non-First Nations populations, and in younger age groups. There is an urgent need to address the incidence of dementia, if Australia’s ageing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are to be safeguarded against the impact of this disorder, over the coming decades. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care services are, therefore, well placed for delivering strength-based, clinical care and health services as part of their broader health strategy to promote positive health and wellbeing across the life course, to safeguard against dementia in later life.
This project is being led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous researchers from James Cook University, using an Aboriginal participatory action research approach and incorporating yarning and continuous quality improvement process by applying a whole of organisation approach to plan, and implement health systems and process change to strengthen clinical care.
Publication
Yvonne C. Hornby-Turner, Sarah G. Russell, Rachel Quigley, Veronica Matthews, Sarah Larkins, Noel Hayman, Prabha Lakhan, Leon Flicker, Kate Smith, Dallas McKeown, Diane Cadet-James, Alan Cass, Gail Garvey, Dina LoGiudice, Gavin Miller, Edward Strivens. (2023). Safeguarding against Dementia in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities through the Optimisation of Primary Health Care: A Project Protocol. DOI. https://doi.org/10.3390/mps6050103
