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Coronary heart disease in Aboriginal Communities: Towards a model for self-management
Vicki Wade
PhD Candidate, School of Nursing, Family and Community Health, University of Western Sydney, Sydney NSW
Debra Jackson
Professorial Fellow, School of Nursing, Family and Community Health, University of Western Sydney, NSW
John Daly
Dean, Faculty of Nursing Midwifery and Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney NSW
Abstract
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the main causes of death and disability in the Aboriginal population, and is the major cause of the twenty-year gap in life expectancy of Aboriginal and non – Aboriginal Australians. This paper explores Aboriginal health in relation to CHD, and suggests self-management as a culturally acceptable therapeutic and sustainable ideology from which positive outcomes may be achieved.
The authors acknowledge that there are two Indigenous groups in Australia. In relation to government statistics the two groups Aborigines & Torres Strait Islanders are combined to read ATSI, elsewhere in the paper the use of the term Aboriginal refers to that group of Indigenous Australians.
Keywords
Indigenous, Australian Aborigines, coronary heart disease, self-management, chronic illness
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