Arabic version: مجموعات صحية تطالب بتحرك بشأن متوسط العمر المتوقع للسكان الأصليين

According to ABC News, Aboriginal health organisations are urging the federal and Northern Territory governments to do more to close the Indigenous life expectancy gap, despite gains linked to community-controlled health services. A Menzies School of Health Research study found the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress has helped reduce preventable Indigenous deaths from chronic disease in Central Australia over 50 years.

Congress acting chief executive John Boffa said Aboriginal men’s life expectancy in the region had risen from 47 years when the organisation began to 65, while women were living to 70. Since 2000, the gap had closed by nine years for Aboriginal men and four years for Aboriginal women, he said. The research linked improvements to primary healthcare funding through Aboriginal community-controlled services, hospital investment, and alcohol and sniffable petrol restrictions.

However, the Northern Territory retains Australia’s largest Indigenous life expectancy gap. Aboriginal men in the territory die at an average age of 65, compared with 79 for non-Indigenous men, while Indigenous women die at 69 compared with 83 for non-Indigenous women. Dr Boffa said prevention required action beyond healthcare, including on overcrowded housing, education and poverty.

On Elcho Island, the Gawalnga Aboriginal Corporation’s Hope For Health program provides personalised healthy-eating coaching and chronic disease information in Yolŋu language. An evaluation found that after four months, more than half of participants reduced blood glucose by at least 0.3 per cent and more than a quarter lost at least 3 per cent of baseline body weight. The group has not secured federal or NT funding to continue the program. Federal Indigenous health-service funding has risen by almost a quarter over five years, reaching $1.26 billion annually in 2024-25.