Economies through Application of Nonmedical Primary-Preventative Health: Lessons from the Healthy Country Healthy People Experience of Australia’s Aboriginal People

Abstract

The World Health Organization reports noncommunicable disease as a global pandemic. While national and international health research/policy bodies, such as the World Health Organization and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, emphasize the importance of preventative health, there is a continuing distortion in the allocation of resources to curative health as a result of government failure. Government failure is, in part, the result of a political response to individual preference for certainty in receiving treatment for specific health conditions, rather than the uncertainty of population-based preventative intervention. This has led to a failure to engage with those primary causative factors affecting chronic disease, namely the psychosocial stressors, in which the socioeconomic determinants are an important component. Such causal factors are open to manipulation through government policies and joint government-government, government-private cooperation through application of nonmedical primary-preventative health policies. The health benefits of Aboriginal people in traditional land management, or caring-for-country, in remote to very remote Australia, is used to exemplify the social benefits of nonmedical primary-preventative health intervention. Such practices form part of the “healthy country, health people” concept that is traditionally relied upon by Indigenous peoples. Possible health and wider private good and public good social benefits are shown to occur across multiple disciplines and jurisdictions with the possibility of substantial economies. General principles in the application of nonmedical primary-preventative health activities are developed through consideration of the experience of Afboriginal people participation in traditional caring-for-country.

Associations between Participation in a Ranger Program and Health and Wellbeing Outcomes among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Central Australia: A Proof of Concept Study

“…This ‘proof of concept’ study contributes to the evidence on the broader benefits of Ranger programs. Economic and biodiversity benefits of Ranger work have been well-established [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. This ‘proof of concept’ study provides novel quantitative evidence on the potential health and wellbeing benefits of participation in a Ranger program.…”

“…The programs have generated employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and have improved biodiversity and land management outcomes [ 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. There is also evidence indicating that participation in Ranger programs has economic benefits [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Given that participation in Ranger programs facilitates cultural engagement (for example, through caring for country and transfer of customary ecological knowledge and practices), the program may also have positive impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing.…”

Methods of health education used by indigenous communities in Kunene and Otjozondjupa Regions of Namibia

“…Indigenous and marginalized communities of the world live in these environments, thus suffer more from poor health and reduced quality of life (Inter-agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples' Issues, 2014). Campbell (2016) argues that development advocates' efforts to address factors contributing to health problems suffered by indigenous people (IP) in rural communities and promote their right to health fail because indigenous communities' cultural knowledge and ways of doing things are ignored and thus not incorporated in countries' policies and programmes.…”