Cross Cultural Communication Case Study On Australian Indigenous Community
Question
Task: Develop a case studyon Australian Indigenous Community that describes and analyzes the distinct communicative and cultural needs that would be relevant in developing a public health initiative or program to address a health need recognized in the community. The case study must include the following sections: overview of the status of the chosen community in Australia; review of the health status of the community with a focus on inequities that need to be addressed; description and analysis of communication and cultural factors relevant to the community; and discussion of how these communicative and cultural needs could be addressed in the context of a public health program.
Answer
Introduction to the cross cultural communication case study
Within the Australian society, the cross-cultural engagement (CCE) refers to the distinctive types of engagement that is a community based along with partnering with the citizen who possesses knowledge that does not necessarily correspond to the Eurocentric worldviews or scientific model. Thus, as opined by Annear et al., (2016, p. 755), this kind of engagement program aims in proactively engaging with the relationship that seeks mutual interests and values. Thus, the present cross cultural communication case studyfocuses upon the group topic of The Australian Indigenous Community living in the remote and rural areas along with providing a thorough overview regarding the community and the necessary factors that are associated with the community that will help in precisely presenting the study.
What is the status of the selected community within Australia discussed in this cross cultural communication case study?
Generally, as explained by Armouret al., (2016, p. 430), there are two of the distinct groups of Indigenous individual within Australia that consists of the Torres Strait Islander who is coming from the Torres Strait Island that is in North of the Cape York in Queensland and the Aboriginal people who are coming from the other parts of the country. The Australian Indigenous Community have descended from the individuals who were living in Australia as well as the surrounding island before the European colonisation. Amongst these Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal communities, there are many distinguished languages, beliefs and cultures and hence, referring to the term of Indigenous Australian community is listing a collective name for the hundreds of diverse groups who are residing within the remotes and rural areas of the country. However, some of the indigenous cultures have adapted as well as survived to the colonisation whereas, many of them are still actively reclaimed and revived which makes the indigenous culture very much alive within the country. As exclaimed by Crowe et al., (2017, p. 415), often the individuals within these groups are expected to have dark skin colour who are residing within the remote areas and are considered as the outstanding athletes and sadly there are notions against them for being dysfunctional, addicted to alcohol and drugs dependent upon welfare programs as well as violent. There are certain stereotypes and misconceptions that they are extremely hurtful and contribute to the confusion regarding the ways these indigenous people are treated in modern Australian societies.
In present times, the Indigenous Community of Australia makes up more than 29% of the country's total population that is in a total of 7 million people who are living in the rural and remote areas of the country. As evidenced by Wand (2018, p. 180) within this cross cultural communication case study, New South Wales consists of the highest amount of indigenous population that comprises 208,500 individuals whereas the Northern Territory consists of the highest proportion of the indigenous people that is the 30% of the overall population within the Northern Territory. For instance, some of the indigenous communities are Gunggari, Muriwari and Luritja who are mainly redesigning the remote and rural areas of Queensland and New South Wales.
Figure 1: Population of the Australian Indigenous Community in rural areas
Source: (Aihw.gov.au. 2020.)
Review of the community’s health status by focusing upon the inequities that are needed to be addressed These Australian indigenous communities are facing certain unique challenges because of their geographic isolation along with having poorer health as well as welfare outcomes rather than the people within the major cities. The major proportion of the adults are engaging within behaviours that are associated with poorer health as they are into tobacco smoking and excessive consumption of alcohol that are higher in the rural and remote areas of the country as there is the certain prevalence of the chronic conditions. The poorer health condition might be due to the factors like the disadvantage in education, income and employment opportunities as well as the access to service.
Figure 2: Employment to Population ratio within the indigenous community than the urban cities
Source: (Hall, 2019, p. 430)
Thus, it is stated in this cross cultural communication case study that the behaviour connected with the poorer health, the rate of the chronic conditions and disease burden could be assessed across the remoteness areas. Moreover, taking into account the distinguished age structure of the individual within the remoteness areas and rural conditions are more likely to possess higher rates of health risk factors. Owing to less education, awareness regarding monitoring health conditions as well as adopting preventive measures for avoiding illnesses, such as avoiding alcohol and performing regular exercises, to overcome lifestyle-related disorders like diabetes, obesity and other metabolic disorders is sparsely present. Moreover, the self-reported rates of the selected chronic conditions were similar for the people living within the outer and inner regional areas except for stroke, heart disease as well as vascular disease rates being higher.
Figure 3: Chronic condition among the Australian Indigenous Community
Source: (Fancourt and Steptoe, 2018, p. 5)
Disease burden
The burden of disease analysis reveals that the health inequalities among the rural as well as remote communities expressed as the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) that so the measure of the health impact of the diseases on the population within the given year that is both from the dying as well as living with the injury and diseases. As expressed by Hudson et al., (2017, p. 60) with regards to the case scenario of cross cultural communication case study, individuals living within the remote areas experience the highest overall burden per population is 301 DALY per 1000 population and thus the rate of the emotes areas are 1.7 times the overall rates within the major cities. Moreover, the DALY rates were within the injuries like 15 and 44 DALY per 1000 population along with burden within the urinary and kidney diseases that raised by 6.0 times.
Figure 4: DALY rate as well as the rate ratio in a remote area
Source: (Liebenberg et al., 2019, p.1609406919840547)
Furthermore, age standardised the overall mortality rate that increased within the remote areas increased and thus, the mortality rate raised almost up to 1.4 times as high as in the major cities that are 759 per 1000 population.
Figure 5: Median age at the death and mortality rate ratio in remote areas
Source: (Macqueen et al., 2019, p. 275)
Hence, all of these inequities need to be treated by the government as well as health care institutions within the country so that these communities do not feel left out within the society.
Analysis of the cultural and communication factor relevant to the community
The Australian Indigenous Community that consists of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences exhibits their wide range of varied needs of communication, information preferences as well as an expectation of the government. These different needs are influenced by the factories that include the location, literacy level, cultural considerations, technological accessibility as well as age level. The communication with the Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people is particularly significant for considering the locality and how they are getting the access for the government service as well as information from the regional, remote and urban settings. Thus, as stated by Packer et al., (2019, p. 10), communicating with the regional and remote communities it is very much important to remember that each and every community possess their own regional and local protocols, which helps in dictating the communication taken up by the individuals that need to be culturally sensitive as well as respectful. Thus, there should be the use of clear language with multiple channels for conveying the message such as face to face, television, posters, and websites along with social media. Moreover, there needs to be the use of Australian Government employees within the region for gaining the local knowledge regarding the community and their communication preferences, channels of local communication as well as the key influencers within the community.
The cultural factors within the Australian Indigenous Community possess the unique view that is distinctive and mainstream and thus, family, law, language, land and ceremony are the five interconnected elements of the indigenous culture. Thus, as explained by Reichert (2016, p. 30), the indigenous families are connected to their land through the kinship system and the connections come from the specific responsibilities and roles that are enshrined within the law and thus, it is observed through the ceremony. Hence, these five elements mentioned in this cross cultural communication case study are combined for creating ways for loving and observing the world of the indigenous people. Through understanding the ways through which these elements are intricately interconnected, it helps us in understanding the damages prevailed after the colonisation occurred. Hence, the culture and traditions among the indigenous people provide the purpose and meaning of their lives and the pain they are facing after colonization. The diversity among the indigenous cultures plays the most crucial role within shaping their lives regardless of their heritage and culture that helps in identifying what their life looks like and assists them to develop empathy. Thus, as explained by Rutishauser and Sender (2019, p. 50), the development of understanding and empathy helps the individual within the indigenous community to connect better. Hence, understanding the indigenous culture helps in dispelling the myths and stereotypes regarding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander residing within the rural and remote areas of the country.
Discussion on these cultural and communication needs that address the Public Health Program
The challenges of geographic spread, infrastructure limitation, lower population density along with the high cost of delivering in the remote and rural health care that could affect the access towards healthcare. The high rates of GP within the rural and remote areas is because of them having the broader practice scope given the lower levels of the supply for almost all the other health professionals. The primary healthcare covers the large range of the providers as well as services across the healthcare sectors and is the entry-level to the health system for the indigenous community that are recommended by the government. However, as stated by Sarwaret al., (2020, p. 15), 18% of the people in remote areas, 16% of the inner regional areas are visiting the emergency department of the hospital more frequently. Thus, the people staying within remotes and rural areas are reported for spending more than 1 hour visiting the doctor for even non-emergency reasons and some even travel more than for 5 long hours. Furthermore, for the emergency as well as urgent medical care the majority of the people in these groups are seen to be travelling for more than 4 hours for being able to access the doctors and some of them had to wait for even 6 days to meet them.
In context to this, as presented by Sim(2018, p. 30), the Australian government has established the Indigenous Australian Health care Programme (IAHP) that consolidates the four existing streams of funding like primary healthcare, maternal and child health programs, distinctive future within the Northern Territory (health), the programs covered through the Torres Strait Islander Fund for chronic disease. Thus, the main objective of the program is to provide the Torres strait Islander and Aboriginals audience with the access of effective higher quality, culturally appropriate, comprehensive, no linguistic barriers and primary health care services within the rural and remote areas within Australia. This even includes the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Care services wherever appropriate and possible along with the service across the overall health system, which delivers the culturally adequate and comprehensive primary healthcare. Hence, as stated in the reports published by health.gov.au. (2020), the program guidelines discuss the activities and themes, which may be funded as per the funding availability, application and eligibility as well as assessment process along with the other information of the administration relevant to the Department of the Health Grant Funding.
Conclusion
The present cross cultural communication case studyfocuses on the concept of Cross-Cultural Engagement that mainly selects the topic of The Australian Indigenous Community in the rural and remote areas. The study mentions the overall status of the community within Australia along with reviewing the health status of the particular community with focusing upon the inequalities faced by them. The cross cultural communication case studyalso describes the cultural and communication factors that are relevant to this community consisting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Moreover, the study determines the commutative and culture needs that need to be addressed in the context of their public health program.
References
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