NURS3046 Nursing Project

About the topic

Among the seven risk factors of Aboriginal and the Torres Strait Islander health, alcohol consumption has been chosen as the topic of discussion for this group. Since the aboriginal population experience from a higher burden of alcohol consumption and the extent of the excessive use of alcohol has been found to possess a range of health risks such as alcoholic liver disease or behavioural disorders, suicide assault and transport accidents (Alcohol and other Drugs knowledge centre. 2012). There had been strong evidences linking alcohol and poor mental health. In order to reduce the occurrence of such adversities, government have introduced strategies and policies, some of which had been successful while the others have not been successful (Artuso et al. 2013). Each of the posters have also provided with a vivid account of the prevalence and the probable reasons behind the rampant use of alcohol among the Aboriginals. Proper Australian statistics has been given in relation to the use of alcohol and the age group that are most likely to get addicted to alcohol consumption.

The posters have skilfully described the strategies that have to be taken up reducing the use of the alcohol. It has emphasised upon the community control measures that has been taken so far by the main stream government and the NGOs (Conigrave et al. 2013). However it was very unfortunate to find that many of the aboriginals regard mainstream services to be inappropriate, which indicates towards the formation of aboriginal community controlled organisation (Jayaraj et al. 2013). The posters have also described about how addressing the social determinants can bring about the demand reduction. All the individual posters agree upon the strategies like education and persuasion, alternatives to alcohol use , proper screening followed by brief interventions to be effective for reducing alcohol use among the aboriginal community (Heath 2012). The posters have also provided an insight to the ways like indirectly price control, community wide alcohol bans, local dry alcohol bans and alcohol management plan to be the effective ways to reduce the excessive use of alcohol (Crouch and Fagan 2014).

The posters have rightly pointed out that communication, transportation costs and the remoteness to be the potential barriers to access the health promotion program (Dudgeon et al. 2013). Hence, all these factors should be addressed before the conduction of any health promotion campaign. We have also identified how the proper communication techniques can help in the proper dissemination of the strategies in a culturally safer way (Gray et al. 2012). Finally each of the posters have provided with a recommendation plan in relation to the NATIONAL ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER HEALTH PLAN 2013–2023, which can involve effective control on the supply, increasing the alcohol taxation or the increasing the funding for the improvement of the ongoing care (Fitzpatrick et al. 2013, Fitts et al. 2014).

Implications to future practice

This study will help in our future practice as we have brainstormed through ample government websites collecting the data for the alcohol use among the Aboriginal Australians, rate of the disease burden, the main determinants for the excessive alcohol use. Researching through the policies that had been implemented till now has helped us in identifying the gaps that has to be worked on. Identification of the social determinants of the harmful alcohol use has helped us to assess the underlying social factors that have to be addressed.  A lot of information was also obtained regarding then the alcohol taxation and restrictions within the aboriginal community.

References

Alcohol and other Drugs knowledge centre. 2012. Providing the evidence base to reduce harmful AOD use in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.Access date: 25.9.2018. Retrieved: from:https://aodknowledgecentre.ecu.edu.au/

Artuso, S., Cargo, M., Brown, A. and Daniel, M., 2013. Factors influencing health care utilisation among Aboriginal cardiac patients in central Australia: a qualitative study. BMC Health Services Research, 13(1), p.83.

Conigrave, K., Freeman, B., Caroll, T., Simpson, L., Lee, K.K., Wade, V., Kiel, K., Ella, S., Becker, K. and Freeburn, B., 2012. The Alcohol Awareness project: community education and brief intervention in an urban Aboriginal setting. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 23(3), pp.219-225.

Crouch, A. and Fagan, P., 2014. Are insights from Indigenous health shaping a paradigm shift in health promotion praxis in Australia?. Australian journal of primary health, 20(4), pp.323-326.

Dudgeon, P., Walker, R., Scrine, C., Shepherd, C., Calma, T. and Ring, I., 2014. Effective strategies to strengthen the mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Issues paper, 12.

Fitts, M.S., National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (Australia) and Palk, G.R., 2015. Development of a drink driving program for regional and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund.

Fitzpatrick, J.P., Elliott, E.J., Latimer, J., Carter, M., Oscar, J., Ferreira, M., Olson, H.C., Lucas, B., Doney, R., Salter, C. and Peadon, E., 2012. The Lililwan Project: study protocol for a population-based active case ascertainment study of the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) in remote Australian Aboriginal communities. BMJ open, 2(3), p.e000968.

Gray D, Cartwright K, Stearne A, Saggers S, Wilkes E, Wilson M.2018.  Review of the harmful use of alcohol among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Australian Indigenous Health InfoNet. From https://healthbulletin.org.au/articles/review-of-the-harmful-use-of-alcohol-among-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people

Heath, D.B., 2012. Drinking occasions: Comparative perspectives on alcohol and culture. Routledge.

Jayaraj, R., Thomas, M., Thomson, V., Griffin, C., Mayo, L., Whitty, M., d’Abbs, P. and Nagel, T., 2012. High risk alcohol-related trauma among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Northern Territory. Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy, 7(1), p.33.