ABSTRACT
The poor health of Indigenous Australians is a continuing scandal in contemporary Australia. While the infant mortality rate reduced significantly from the early 1970s, overall death rates are still almost four times higher for Indigenous Australians than for other Australians and only 4 percent of Indigenous Australians are aged 60 or older (compared with 15 percent of all Australians). The primary causes of death are heart disease, accidents and injuries, and respiratory diseases. Morbidity rates and hospitalization rates as well as mortality rates are higher among Indigenous than other Australians for a wide number of conditions including diabetes, respiratory diseases, complications of pregnancy, and diseases of the circulatory system (Harrison 1991: 154; Saggers and Gray 1991; Thomson 1991: 55). This chapter draws on our research with one disease that is particularly prevalent among Indigenous women: cervical cancer.
