Aboriginal children's health: Study shows differences between urban and remote areas

A long-term study of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory has found stark differences in key health indicators - especially height and weight - between children from urban and remote communities.

The study was conducted by Dr Dorothy Mackerras and colleagues at the Menzies School of Health Research and the Royal Darwin Hospital, Darwin, NT.

Detailed in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, the study surveyed 482 children born between January 1987 and March 1990. The researchers followed up the children between 1998 and 2001, when they were aged 8-14 years.

Dr Mackerras says that although two-thirds of Indigenous people live in urban areas, most research into the health status of Aboriginal Australians has been conducted in remote areas.

"While most research to date has focussed on chronic diseases in adults and poor growth and infectious diseases in pre-school-aged children, relatively few investigations have been done in the Indigenous school-aged population," Dr Mackerras said.

"We set out to change that by investigating the prevalence of markers of growth, and chronic and infectious disease in Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory, and comparing results between children living in urban areas and those in remote communities."

Children in remote communities were found to be shorter and lighter and had lower body mass and haemoglobin levels than the urban children. They also had a higher prevalence of visible infections.

However, some potential markers of adult chronic diseases - blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels - were higher in the urban children.

While the remote group included a larger proportion of underweight children than the general Australian population, the urban group contained an excess of both overweight children and underweight children.

Dr Mackerras says these findings indicate that the results of health surveys of remote Aboriginal children should not be generalised to apply to children from urban communities.

"There are significant differences," Dr Mackerras says.

"Although the results from the Darwin urban area do not necessarily reflect the health status of Aboriginal children in other Australian cities, they do indicate that it is inappropriate to generalise findings from remote areas to urban areas."

The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.

CONTACT: Dr Dorothy Mackerras (08) 8922 8283 B/H; (0409) 288 896 (A/H)

Email: dorothy@menzies.edu.au

Judith Tokley, AMA Public Affairs (0408) 824 306