doug nelson: DISENGAGE!

Indigenous Australians (also known, sometimes derogatively, as Aborigines), are 26 times more likely to develop dementia than the rest of the Australian population, 5 to 10-times as likely to develop rheumatic heart disease and hypertensive disease, and three times as likely to die of “external causes” like car accidents and suicide.

According the Australian Bureau of Statistics,he following factors have been at least partially implicated in the racial inequality in life expectancy:

• poverty (low income)
• poor education
• substance abuse (smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs)
• for remote communities poor access to health services including immunization
• for urbanized Indigenous Australians, social pressures which prevent access to health services
• cultural differences resulting in poor communication between Indigenous Australians and health workers.
• exposure to violence or other types of abuse

Tomorrow’s “learned today” will be less depressing.