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• Indigenous Chronic
  Disease Package
• Tackling Chronic Disease
  Risk Factors
  • National action to reduce Indigenous smoking rate
  • Helping Indigenous Australians to reduce their risk of chronic disease
  • Local Indigenous community campaigns to promote better health
• Improving Chronic Disease
  Management and Follow up
  • Subsidising PBS medicine co-payments
  • Higher utilisation costs for MBS and PBS
  • Supporting primary care providers to coordinate chronic disease management
  • Improving Indigenous participation in health care through chronic disease self management
  • Increasing specialist and allied health follow up care
  • Monitoring and evaluation
• Workforce Expansion,
  Training and Support
  • Workforce education and training
  • Expanding the outreach and service capacity of Indigenous health services
  • Engaging Medicare Locals to improve Indigenous Access to mainstream primary care
  • Attracting more people to work in Indigenous Health
  • Clinical practice and decision support

Indigenous Chronic Disease Package

Preventing chronic disease

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The prevention elements of the package are being delivered through a range of health and community organisations, including Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services, other Indigenous Health Services and Divisions of General Practice.

The package focuses on encouraging Indigenous Australians to be proactive in accessing health services as well as promoting healthy lifestyle choices, and improving access to targeted information about the risk factors for chronic disease, such as smoking, poor nutrition, obesity and lack of exercise.

Smoking is a leading risk factor for chronic disease in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, accounting for 12 per cent of the total burden of disease and one-fifth of deaths among Indigenous Australians³.

Smoking tobacco increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis, macular degeneration and blindness. Reducing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who smoke is essential if the goal of closing the gap in life expectancy is to be realised.

The Package is delivering:

• A national network of Regional Tobacco Coordinators, Tobacco Action Workers and Healthy Lifestyle Workers to help communities develop local smoking reduction strategies and coordinate initiatives across all levels of government, as well as health, education and other services.
  The recruitment of these teams has begun with funding provided to the first 21 sites. Further recruitment will take place in early 2011 for another 20 sites and 17 sites in mid 2012.
• Training for 1,000 existing health and community development workers in relevant interventions to reduce smoking. Up to 200 workers will be trained in 2010-11; 400 in 2011-12 and a further 400 in 2012-13.
• Access to quit smoking services for some 13,500 Indigenous Australians, including individual, family and community-based programs over the next few years.
• Funding and training for up to 105 Healthy Lifestyle Workers to assist Indigenous individuals and families at risk of developing a chronic disease to adopt healthy lifestyle choices. By June 2011, 42 will be funded and trained with another 30 by 2012 and a further 33 by 2013.
• Funding to promote health issues and services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including funding to promote smoking reduction and healthy lifestyle choices. Resource kits are being developed and will be available to support the social marketing campaign programs that will start in 2010-11.
• Funding to enhance Quitline services to ensure appropriate interventions for Indigenous Australians.

³Vos, T, Barker, B, Stanley, L & Lopez, A 2007, The burden of disease and injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 2003, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland, Brisbane.

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Page currency, Latest update: 09 December, 2010

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