1. Identifying Environmental Determinants Relevant to Health and Wellbeing in Remote Australian Indigenous Communities: A Scoping Review of Grey Literature
- Author
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Alwin Chong, Nicola Slavin, Margaret Cargo, Natasha J. Howard, Alex Brown, Mark Daniel, Amal Chakraborty, Chakraborty, Amal, Daniel, Mark, Howard, Natasha J, Chong, Alwin, Slavin, Nicola, Brown, Alex, and Cargo, Margaret
- Subjects
environmental indicators ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,public policy ,Public policy ,lcsh:Medicine ,environmental health ,Review ,Indigenous ,03 medical and health sciences ,Gray Literature ,0302 clinical medicine ,Population Groups ,social planning ,medicine ,Northern Territory ,Health Services, Indigenous ,Humans ,030212 general & internal medicine ,indigenous ,Environmental planning ,Built environment ,Social policy ,030505 public health ,High prevalence ,community infrastructure ,Public health ,lcsh:R ,public health ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Grey literature ,built environment ,community capacity ,Identification (information) ,Geography ,grey literature ,Chronic Disease ,Public Health ,0305 other medical science - Abstract
The high prevalence of preventable infectious and chronic diseases in Australian Indigenous populations is a major public health concern. Existing research has rarely examined the role of built and socio-political environmental factors relating to remote Indigenous health and wellbeing. This research identified built and socio-political environmental indicators from publicly available grey literature documents locally-relevant to remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia. Existing planning documents with evidence of community input were used to reduce the response burden on Indigenous communities. A scoping review of community-focused planning documents resulted in the identification of 1120 built and 2215 socio-political environmental indicators. Indicators were systematically classified using an Indigenous indicator classification system (IICS). Applying the IICS yielded indicators prominently featuring the “community infrastructure” domain within the built environment, and the “community capacity” domain within the socio-political environment. This research demonstrates the utility of utilizing existing planning documents and a culturally appropriate systematic classification system to consolidate environmental determinants that influence health and disease occurrence. The findings also support understanding of which features of community-level built and socio-political environments amenable to public health and social policy actions might be targeted to help reduce the prevalence of infectious and chronic diseases in Indigenous communities Refereed/Peer-reviewed
- Published
- 2021