Cargando…

Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus

Inequitable social environments can illustrate changes needed in the social structure to generate more equitable social relations and behaviour. In Australia, British colonization left an intergenerational legacy of racism against Aboriginal people, who are disadvantaged across various social indica...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Durey, Angela, Naylor, Nola, Slack-Smith, Linda
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10291420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37381845
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0294
_version_ 1785062692302618624
author Durey, Angela
Naylor, Nola
Slack-Smith, Linda
author_facet Durey, Angela
Naylor, Nola
Slack-Smith, Linda
author_sort Durey, Angela
collection PubMed
description Inequitable social environments can illustrate changes needed in the social structure to generate more equitable social relations and behaviour. In Australia, British colonization left an intergenerational legacy of racism against Aboriginal people, who are disadvantaged across various social indicators including oral health. Aboriginal Australian children have poorer health outcomes with twice the rate of dental caries as non-Aboriginal children. Our research suggests structural factors outside individual control, including access to and cost of dental services and discrimination from service providers, prevent many Aboriginal families from making optimum oral health decisions, including returning to services. Nader's concept of ‘studying up’ redirects the lens onto powerful institutions and governing bodies to account for their role in undermining good health outcomes, indicating changes needed in the social structure to improve equality. Policymakers and health providers can critically reflect on structural advantages accorded to whiteness in a colonized country, where power and privilege that often go unnoticed and unexamined by those who benefit incur disadvantages to Aboriginal Australians, as reflected in inequitable oral health outcomes. This approach disrupts the discourse placing Aboriginal people at the centre of the problem. Instead, refocusing the lens onto structural factors will show how those factors can compromise rather than improve health outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary ecology of inequality’.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10291420
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-102914202023-06-27 Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus Durey, Angela Naylor, Nola Slack-Smith, Linda Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Inequitable social environments can illustrate changes needed in the social structure to generate more equitable social relations and behaviour. In Australia, British colonization left an intergenerational legacy of racism against Aboriginal people, who are disadvantaged across various social indicators including oral health. Aboriginal Australian children have poorer health outcomes with twice the rate of dental caries as non-Aboriginal children. Our research suggests structural factors outside individual control, including access to and cost of dental services and discrimination from service providers, prevent many Aboriginal families from making optimum oral health decisions, including returning to services. Nader's concept of ‘studying up’ redirects the lens onto powerful institutions and governing bodies to account for their role in undermining good health outcomes, indicating changes needed in the social structure to improve equality. Policymakers and health providers can critically reflect on structural advantages accorded to whiteness in a colonized country, where power and privilege that often go unnoticed and unexamined by those who benefit incur disadvantages to Aboriginal Australians, as reflected in inequitable oral health outcomes. This approach disrupts the discourse placing Aboriginal people at the centre of the problem. Instead, refocusing the lens onto structural factors will show how those factors can compromise rather than improve health outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary ecology of inequality’. The Royal Society 2023-08-14 2023-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10291420/ /pubmed/37381845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0294 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Durey, Angela
Naylor, Nola
Slack-Smith, Linda
Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
title Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
title_full Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
title_fullStr Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
title_full_unstemmed Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
title_short Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
title_sort inequalities between aboriginal and non-aboriginal australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10291420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37381845
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0294
work_keys_str_mv AT dureyangela inequalitiesbetweenaboriginalandnonaboriginalaustraliansseenthroughthelensoforalhealthtimetochangefocus
AT naylornola inequalitiesbetweenaboriginalandnonaboriginalaustraliansseenthroughthelensoforalhealthtimetochangefocus
AT slacksmithlinda inequalitiesbetweenaboriginalandnonaboriginalaustraliansseenthroughthelensoforalhealthtimetochangefocus