Social determinants of Indigenous health short course and textbook

Menzies School of Health Research received a Public Health Education and Research Program (PHERP) grant in 2002 to develop and conduct a short course on the Social Determinants of Indigenous Health. The course was developed through an extensive period of consultation which involved Indigenous academics and thinkers from all over Australia.

From April to June 2002 the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health (the predecessor to the CRCAH) funded the development and staging of a seminar series called Inequality and Health: a Northern Australian Perspective, which then formed the development of the short-course content for the PHERP grant.

In March 2004, Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin ran the first course on this subject to ever be held in Australia. The presentations from the short course were then edited to produced a groundbreaking textbook, Social Determinants of Indigenous Health, edited by Bronwyn Carson, Terry Dunbar, Richard D Chenhall and Ross Bailie, and published in 2007 by Allen & Unwin.

The book scrutinises the social dynamics of making policy for Indigenous Australians, and the interrelation between human rights and health. The authors outline a framework for effective health interventions, which take social factors into consideration. It also looks at the impact of poverty and class on health, and chapters on why education, employment and access to traditional country can impact on the health of Aboriginal people.

Social determinants of Indigenous health is designed to be accessible to a wide range of people, including undergraduate and post-graduate students. It is authored by an array of Australia ‘s leading Aboriginal health researchers and has already gone into reprint after strong demand from several Australian academic institutions.

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Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land across Australia and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices and names of deceased persons.

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