Abstract
Aboriginal people across Australia suffer significant health inequalities compared with the non-Indigenous population. Evidence indicates that inroads can be made to reduce these inequalities by better understanding social and cultural determinants of health, applying holistic notions of health and developing less rigid definitions of wellbeing. The following article draws on qualitative research on Victorian Aboriginal peoples’ relationship to their traditional land (known as Country) and its link to wellbeing, in an attempt to tackle this. Concepts of wellbeing, Country and nature have also been reviewed to gain an understanding of this relationship. An exploratory framework has been developed to understand this phenomenon focusing on positive (e.g., ancestry and partnerships) and negative (e.g., destruction of Country and racism) factors contributing to Aboriginal peoples’ health. The outcome is an explanation of how Country is a fundamental component of Aboriginal Victorian peoples’ wellbeing and the framework articulates the forces that impact positively and negatively on this duality. This review is critical to improving not only Aboriginal peoples’ health but also the capacity of all humanity to deal with environmental issues like disconnection from nature and urbanisation.
Highlights
In the following paper “Aboriginal” refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as “Aboriginal Victorian” represents Aboriginal people from the state of Victoria
This article aimed to provide insight of how Aboriginal Victorian peoples connect to Country, providing a framework for exploring this connection
This is of importance in the field of ecohealth as, by having an understanding of this holistic approach to contact with Country, we can apply it with other populations to improve collaborative understandings of forces which impact on wellbeing
Summary
In the following paper “Aboriginal” refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as “Aboriginal Victorian” represents Aboriginal people from the state of Victoria. “Indigenous” will refer to Traditional Custodians’ international with “non-Indigenous” describing people who do not identify as the above. The reasons such terminology was chosen include that the National Aboriginal. Aboriginal people of Australia suffer great health inequalities in comparison to their non-Indigenous counterparts [4,5,6,7]. Life expectancy data estimates between a 9.7/11.5 (for females and males respectively) to 17 year gap between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australians [5,8,9,10]. Aboriginal Victorian people experience the same fate as those in other states, suffering similar health inequalities [11,12]
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