Published 26 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1852
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1852

News

Aboriginal children are still twice as likely to die as other young Australians

Jane McCredie

1 Sydney

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The death rate among children and adolescents from Aboriginal and other indigenous groups in Australia has fallen over the past decade, a report has found. However, indigenous people aged between 1 year and 20 years are still twice as likely as other Australians in this age group to die, it says.

The report highlights the scale of the challenge faced by Australian federal and state governments, which last year committed themselves to closing, within a generation, the 17 year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

The push to resolve the crisis in Aboriginal health has also seen an undertaking by the federal government to halve mortality in indigenous children under the age of 5 years within a decade. However, the latest report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicates that even this ambitious target would leave indigenous children worse off than other Australians, given their . . . [Full text of this article]


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