ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses housing conditions in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and examines some of the recent initiatives to improve housing in these communities in the context of the contemporary international understanding of the relationship between housing and health. It illustrates some of the complexities of achieving improvements in health through addressing housing issues, and argues that a long-term, ecological and continuous quality improvement approach is required to maximise the impact of housing programs on health—a commonly stated goal of Indigenous housing programs. Crowded housing conditions facilitate the spread of a number of common infectious and parasitic conditions. The high prevalence of these conditions at a population level in remote communities leads to repeated infections in individual residents. The 2001 community housing and infrastructure needs survey reported that 58 100 Indigenous households (35 per cent) had major structural problems, with the problem being most common for households in Indigenous or community housing rental programs (55 per cent).
