Disability and chronic disease: Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2007

Rates of disability and chronic disease have a bearing on, and reflect, the wellbeing of Indigenous people. In addition to serious illness, Indigenous people have high exposure to a range of other ‘personal stressors’ that may contribute to the development of long term health conditions.

Around 36 per cent of the Indigenous population aged 15 years or over reported a disability or long term health condition in 2002. After taking into account the different age structures of the populations, 21 per cent of Indigenous people aged 18 years and over in non-remote areas reported a disability resulting in core activity limitation. This was almost twice as high as that reported by non-Indigenous people.

As no new data on disability have become available since the 2005 Report, this Report compares rates of selected long term health conditions (that may cause disability) among Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. More information on chronic diseases in the Indigenous population can be found in the ‘Access to primary health care’ strategic indicator.

KEY MESSAGES

In non-remote areas in 2002, Indigenous adults were twice as likely to report a disability resulting in a profound or severe core activity limitation as non-Indigenous adults.

From 2001 to 2004-05, there was an increase in the number of long term health conditions for which Indigenous people reported higher rates than non-Indigenous people. In 2001, Indigenous people reported higher rates of asthma, diabetes/ high sugar levels and kidney disease than non-Indigenous people. In 2004-05, Indigenous people also reported higher rates of arthritis, back pain/ problems, and heart and circulatory diseases (figure 3.2.1 and table 3A.2.1).

In 2004-05, the greatest difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous rates was for kidney disease, where the Indigenous rate was 10 times as high as the non-Indigenous rate. This gap is widening - in 2001, the Indigenous rate was 5 times as high as the non-Indigenous rate (table 3A.2.1).

In 2004-05, Indigenous people were three times as likely as non-Indigenous people to have diabetes (figure 3.2.1). There was no improvement in the reported incidence of diabetes among Indigenous people between 2001 and 2004-05 (table 3A.2.1).

THINGS THAT WORK

Disease prevention programs for Indigenous people in NSW include:

the Aboriginal Vascular Health Program, which applies general disease management approaches for a number of preventable vascular diseases (box 3.2.2)
a partnership between Justice Health, NSW Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services and Area Health Services, which provides health care services and disease prevention programs for Indigenous people in custody (box 3.2.2).

Report Chapter 3: Headline Indicators
(PDF document)

Attachment 3A
(Excel document)

See next indicator: Years 10 and 12 retention and attainment.